Red Clouds and Starry Eyes
by Noticed Kohai
Summary: Sequel to Growing Up. It's been a month since Kana fled Konoha to attend to Itachi's illness. Anbu have started going missing and no one knows why. Madara wants her on his side. Will she stay with the Akatsuki after Itachi's death, or live out her days alone and on the run with the mysterious young girl that looks to her for guidance? Will she find redemption for her sins?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This is the sequel to Growing Up, which can be found on my profile, or here: s/11514209/1/Growing-Up You can read this on its own, sure, but there's gonna be a lot of things you don't understand when it comes to the OC's kekkei genkai and her previous friendships sooo I'd suggest reading that first. Someone asked me if I'd write a filler story for Kana's time in Root, but I think the most I'll do is add a few flashbacks because there really isn't anything I had planned for that.

But if you're stubborn and don't want to read the last story, Kana's whole shindig is that she's providing a behind-the-scenes look on the Naruto timeline - as opposed to seeing everything from the main characters' eyes. She's stubborn, hotheaded, dotes way too much on the people she grew up with and hates her clan for being a bunch of twisted ritualistic freaks. Her hair changes between shades of white and black based off of her mood and has a kekkei genkai that I based heavily off of the whole "Body and mind" thing, as well as yin and yang. The taoism view structure, not the Naruto release types.

* * *

The snow had stopped by morning, melting away beneath the warm sun that insisted on warming the climate even as a chilly breeze rolled through the street. Kana pulled her knees up to her chest and tightened her Captain's cloak around her small frame against the bite of the cold. She flashed her Kurogan to scan their surroundings for the sixth time in the last hour, a scouting pattern the kunoichi had come up with as to not over exert herself.

About a dozen feet away, Kisame stirred from the gentle rays of light that poked in through the window Kana was sitting on. The shark-like man hadn't truly slept through the night as he had tried making it seem; she caught him looking at her with one eye open every now and then when he would wake up. He still didn't trust her after their month together, which was understandable. What kind of person does someone have to be to abandon their duty and friends to accompany a group of S-class criminals?

 _'One with a violently self-destructive edge, apparently,'_ Kana thought wryly to herself.

When it truly mattered, the shinobi had an excellent hold on her emotions so she had managed to put forth a steely demeanor instead of crying until she choked on her own spit like Kana wanted to. Still, she knew she must be emanating absolute misery because whenever she had caught Kisame looking at her, he always had a wary expression of curiosity.

As the sun rose higher, Itachi's eyebrows furrowed at the offending light before pearly-black eyes blinked open.

"I told you four hours," he muttered flatly, looking mildly irritated. If circumstances were different then Kana would have probably grinned at how her childhood friend was still as much of a nightowl as ever. Instead, she shrugged wordlessly. Kana had yet to utter a word since leaving the village – partly due to mental exhaustion, but mostly due to not wanting to hear how small and broken it would sound in her ears.

When it was clear that she wasn't going to give any more of an answer, Itachi sighed and pushed himself upright on the futon; long black hair cascaded over his shoulders in a knotted mess. "Pain wishes to convene at sundown," he murmured, rubbing his face.

Kisame yawned and stretched out over the futon that he was about two sizes too large for, "He's the only one that knows about her, right?" When Itachi nodded, his lips stretched into a grin, "I wonder how they'll react to a tiny child joining the organization."

His eyes were fixed on Kana as he spoke, which told her that he was attempting to elicit some sort of reaction from her; she only flashed her Kurogan for the ten minute cycle.

" _Again_ , you're allowing appearances to fool you. She's only eight months younger-" his irritated words were cut off by a small cough that turned into an almost violent fit.

Kana swung her legs over the window sill and knelt next to the convulsing man, noting the blood that splattered into his palm when she pulled his arms away from his chest so she could place her hands over his lungs. _'Sit up straight,'_ she commanded. When he brought his hands up to cough into them, Kana pushed them away and shook her head, _'I need your arms out of the way.'_

Clearing his lungs took only a few moments, but Kana made sure to pay extra attention to the damaged tissue that lined the organs. There were bits and pieces of his lungs that were showing signs of decay, as if they were dying faster than the rest of Itachi's body – just like they were. There was a light tinkling sound as Kana channeled some of her white chakra into his body, watching the green glow of medical ninjutsu change texture from a steady green flame-like shape to a green flame with tiny starbursts.

The man gurgled something incoherent before a mixture of spittle and blood splattered across her Anbu mask.

It took longer than she would have liked, but she was eventually able to restore the dead tissue with living cells, merging into the rest of Itachi's lung seamlessly. Without asking permission Kana slid her hand up to his throat and gingerly wrapped her fingers around his neck, working on the miniscule tears in his trachea that were attributing to his bloody coughs.

Color slowly returned to Itachi's face as his body was healed and when Kana's hands left his body he no longer looked as pale and sickly as he did before.

Curiosity glittered in Kisame's white eyes as the ordeal unfolded, watching the kunoichi while she worked, "This's the best he's looked in weeks – months, even," he noted, "That wasn't just _normal_ medical ninjutsu."

His tone carried his words as a question, but Kana didn't have much interest in discussing the intricacies of how her chakra and jutsu worked so she only rose to a standing position and walked over to her backpack. Taking out one of the small cloths she normally kept reserved for cleaning her blades, Kana snapped her Anbu mask off and began to wipe away the drying traces of bloody phlegm.

"What's the purpose of wearing a mask when you're already wearing goggles and a cloth mask that cover your face-"

"Kisame," Itachi cut in, having pulled his hair back into a neat ponytail, "It'd do you well to not ask so many questions."

With a heavy sigh, the shark-man shrugged and pulled his cloak over his massive shoulders, "Whatever you say. I'm hungry, how about we find some food in this backwater town?"

Kana frowned at his tone but remained silent as she slung her pack onto her back. She sort of liked the small village they had found refuge in; it had a nice charm to it. Though the shit weather wasn't doing it any favors, with the streets muddied by the thin layer of snow that had melted into the dirt.

They soon entered a small one-room tea shop and sat down at a table in the back, something that appeared to be a habit of the two Akatsuki members as they silently climbed over the wooden benches to seat themselves. When Kana didn't immediately follow suit, only standing behind Kisame, the pair leered up at her questioningly. It took her a few moments to realize what they were expecting, and she soon hooked her legs over the bench Itachi sat on. This was the first time she hadn't just jumped onto the roof to pop a food pill into her mouth and wash it down with her canteen.

Her worn heart clenched painfully when the server brought a small tray with three tea cups and a pot of aromatic green tea, pouring the translucent beverage into each cup and distributing them accordingly. Images of the night Kana left flashed through her mind – the way Neji's shoulders sagged as she left his window, the way his eyes glittered like white pearls with unshed tears...

 _"I'm beginning to think this stuff is the source of your power," Kana joked when Neji moved to pour his fifth cup of tea in the last hour, "You know that has caffeine in it, right? You shouldn't drink it so fast."_

 _The boy leered up at her from under his long lashes with a pout, "Are you telling me to stop?"_

 _Muscles instinctively pulled Kana's lips into a fond smile at his attempt at swaying her. Nearly everyone knew that she had a huge fluffy soft spot for the eight year old, but only he knew just how easily he could manipulate her with the tilt of his head. She reached out for her own cup and brought it to her lips, which were still bruised from being kicked in the mouth by Guy during training, and nursed the tea with a shrug._

 _White eyes flitted between hers and the cup before letting out a defeated sigh. Neji continued to pour his tea, but only filled the cup halfway._

 _Satisfaction brewed in her chest and Kana slid her hand up to twirl the boy's hair around her bandaged finger, "You Hyugas and your tea," she sighed happily._

Instead of picking up the small porcelain cup, Kana set her trembling hands into her lap and watched the steam curl up into the air. She shook her head when the server asked for her order, not having an interest in food when her stomach was twisting into knots.

"No sleep, not drinking and you're still refusing food," Kisame mused from behind his teacup, "You trying to prove something?"

A slender hand reached up to touch the side of Kana's face, turning gently applying enough pressure to let her know that Itachi wanted her to look at him.

 _'I understand your pain'_ his deep voice thought when her Ishikigan activated, _'But you need to keep your strength up. Your misery will be all for naught if you were to fall ill and die. I'm not the only one that has noticed how much weight you've lost since joining us.'_

She kept her mental block up but nodded, looking back to the patient server and asking for kakuni-filled onigiri. Normally she was a fan of plain or seafood-filled rice balls, but the country they were in had no port so it wasn't an option. The kunoichi ignored Kisame's comment on how her voice sounded like bells, not quite sure what to make of it.

 _'How much does he know?_ ' she asked, idly wondering how Kana was going to be able to drink her tea through two masks without a straw.

Itachi mentally shook his head, _'He knows of our relationship, but virtually nothing of your abilities as a shinobi – why do you feel angry?'_

Despite no longer needing to maintain eye contact, only requiring it to initially establish a connection once her dojutsu was activated, she looked up and narrowed her eyes at the shinobi, _'You gave him personal information that he could use against us, but failed to mention the information we_ need _him to know on the battlefield?'_ Kana sighed audibly, _'Itachi, what the hell?'_

Dark eyebrows knitted together in response as Itachi realized how devastating that kind of blunder could have been. Being a skilled ninja himself, he knew the importance of knowing one's teammates' skills and abilities. _'To be fair, I still don't know the_ extent _of your powers. Relaying outdated information can be worse than leaving your comrade completely in the dark.'_

 _'_ Is _he a comrade?'_ she hissed, _'He's an S-class criminal, and from the Mist! They're brutal enough as it is.'_

Itachi frowned, _'We're both S-classes, too.'_

A small choked noise escaped Kana's clothed lips at the harsh reminder of what their grouping entailed. She hadn't forgotten that she was now considered a traitor, someone that had abandoned her village to join a mercenary organization, but the kunoichi had been trying to not focus on it. Now it had been driven into the forefront of her consciousness like a cold spike. The familiar dark blanket began to lay itself over her heart, and Kana chose to deactivate the dojutsu and focus her attention on the warm food that had been placed in front of her.

It looked like the region they were in chose to wrap their rice balls in what looked like woven bamboo leaves, making Kana feel almost guilty about ruining the lovely presentation as she hooked her gloved finger under one of the leaves to tug it free and reveal the hot rice. Serving them warm, as opposed to the cold onigiri she was used to back home, must have been another regional difference.

Seeing Itachi slide a dango off of a skewer, delicate tongue flicking out to catch the red bean paste that didn't quite make it past his lips, brought a small sense of comfort to Kana. He still had a sweet tooth.

Fighting against the wave of paranoia that was associated every time her cloth mask was pulled down, she bunched the fabric to just below her chin and broke off a piece of the steaming rice ball to bring it up to her lips beneath her Anbu mask, eyes fixated on the blue man that was eating three different bowls of donburi and toppings seemingly all at once.

For a brief moment Kana considered just activating her dojutsu and digging into his brain like she did with any other person she needed to acquire information from, but she quickly decided that it would have been a terrible idea. Kisame was supposed to be her teammate, and she could tell that Itachi genuinely considered him to be as much of a friend as he could hope for in his situation, so rifling through his mind would be disrespectful to both him and the Uchiha. As soon as he would have felt it, which she knew he would, Kisame most likely would be furious. Over the last few weeks they've spent together, Kana had come to understand that he was a short-tempered man that loved to fight. As dangerous as he was, he really wasn't too different from her.

She waited until after they had paid the teahouse owner and walked a few miles out in silence before speaking up.

"Kisame, you asked why I wear a mask," she murmured, her steely voice sounding almost foreign in her ears; Kana didn't even speak to her subordinates in Root in such a cold tone. Kisame made a humming noise to let her know that he was listening and she took that as a sign to continue, "Like Itachi's Sharingan, my eyes have different stages."

To prove her point, she pushed her Anbu mask to the side and slipped her goggles down to her neck, watching his lips curl into a curious grin at the sight of her swirling irises, "Except when I unlocked the second stage of my dojutsu, it changed the entire genetic makeup of my eyes. They glow brighter the stronger my emotions become, making stealth next to impossible, hence the goggles. It also makes me immune to genjutsu-"

Kisame's eyes flitted over to Itachi and she didn't need to dig through his mind to know what he was thinking, "-With the exception of that wielded by expert Mangekyo users. Meaning, yes, something like the Kotoamatsukami and Tsukiyomi could work on me."

Itachi's shoulder twitched slightly at the mention of Shisui's jutsu, and Kana immediately felt bad for bringing it up – she had almost forgotten that Danzo had only been able to acquire the jutsu through stealing their friend's Sharingan. Vaguely, she wondered if Itachi knew about the village elder's collection.

"So what do the different stages do?" Kisame purred, his curious grin expanding enough to reveal impossibly sharp teeth.

She activated her Kurogan and tried to not wonder too much about how he managed to eat or talk without cutting himself, "The first stage allows me to see across great distances – the more chakra I put into it, the farther I can see. I can also see the individual chakra points on a shinobi and identify a person's chakra signature…" Kana's eyes flitted to the wrapped sword on his back, "For example, I can see that your scaly blade is sentient, and that you have identical chakra signatures. But you're constantly channeling chakra into it."

An eyebrow raised high enough to nearly disappear into his forehead protector, "That's right. Samehada and I have been together long enough for our chakras to merge. I can even hide myself inside of it completely undetected." Kisame removed the wrapped sword from his back as he spoke, holding it out and to the side towards the kunoichi, "But you're wrong about one thing, I'm not giving it any of my chakra. It absorbs and eats chakra on its own – we have a sort of _symbiotic_ _relationship_ , I guess you could say."

Kana experimentally focused her yin chakra to her hand and touched the bandages to channel the black flame-like energy into the sword; she jerked her hand back when it began to writhe, eliciting a laugh from the mountainous blue man.

"I haven't seen him that unhappy with someone's chakra since he stole some of Itachi's," he chuckled, his laughter gaining intensity when her brow furrowed, "Are you offended?"

Ignoring his question, she transferred her white chakra to the blade. It squirmed more and Kisame placed it back into its straps with a curious glint.

"You have more than one chakra type," he noted, "But your eyes are still black, which tells me that you can use one or the other without needing to change chakras – what else should I know about those eyes of yours?"

Silver-white replaced black as Kana transitioned between dojutsu, "My Ishikigan allows me to read minds and thoughts once I get a good look at their eyes…" she trailed off, choosing to speak telepathically for effect, _'And I can project my own. Once I establish a link, I'm in until I decide to pull out or something causes my dojutsu to deactivate.'_

For the first time since she had begun speaking, Kisame's smile faltered as uneasiness set in. Kana had no interest in digging around his head right now, or upsetting him, so she broke the link quickly and kept speaking, "I can merge my chakra types and activate them together, but I haven't mastered that yet. It's hard to maintain a balance still."

"So the goggles aren't just to hide the glow in the dark, they're also so no one can see what stage you're in," he mused, "You're sneaky… And dangerous."

They continued on behind Itachi, going over their combat techniques and jutsu types. Despite coming off as somewhat dense at first, Kisame turned out to be relatively intelligent in the sense that he grasped the concept of Kana's kekkei genkai and tota without needing too much explanation on her part. She explained how her imagination and Ishikigan could be used in combination to insert illusions and false memories into an opponent, and how her black chakra could be molded into physical attacks and shields. When she tried to explain how her white chakra was a healing type, the total opposite of her black, that was for medical ninjutsu to make it more effective, though, Kisame began to get confused.

"You mentioned earlier that you could merge your chakra for your eyes," Itachi suddenly cut in, "Can you do the same for attacks?"

Kana hesitated, trying to figure out how to properly word things before attempting to explain it. "I can, but… It's still too difficult for me to properly control – it's not like a normal yin-yang release and other transformation types. And the only jutsus I can properly execute are sort of like… I guess the best way to explain them is to compare them to a gamma-ray burst and a supernova?" She folded her arms and twirled the end of her ponytail listlessly as she tried to explain it to the pair, which was extremely difficult when most of your techniques and jutsu were self created. In short, she could only merge the two chakras together long enough to create blasts.

Kisame laughed at the way she struggled to explain things, "So if your fighting style is all about using chakra and the _power of imagination_ , " his words dripped with sarcasm at the last bit, "That means you'd be at a pretty heavy disadvantage against me." He reached back and tapped the hilt of his sword for effect.

Glowing eyes narrowed, "A shinobi that can't hold his own without ninjutsu can hardly call himself a shinobi," she said flatly. It was a very strong belief of Kana's that if your physical attacks were shit, then you were a shit ninja – it didn't matter how good you were at ninjutsu or genjutsu.

Shark-like eyes peered at the two blades mounted to her cropped Root jacket, "Kenjutsu?"

"Taijutsu," she corrected, "I've never been that good at kenjutsu and bukijutsu; those were always Itachi's specialties. I'm only average at it in comparison." Well, to be fair, Kana's skills in kenjutsu had increased dramatically in the last year thanks to Danzo's training, but she felt that it would be best to leave a few things out just in case the large man ended up turning on them at some point.

"However, you learned the Flying Thunder God Technique," Itachi noted, pointing a painted finger at the scrolls hanging from her belt where she kept her specially marked kunai, "So you can at least hit the broad side of a _barn_ now. Maybe."

Kisame burst into a roaring fit of laughter at the unexpected jab, "I – haha – I don't think I've ever h-heard that – hahahaha – tone from you b-before, Itachi."

The dark-haired man's eyes widened just a fraction at his slip just before glaring at his teammate wordlessly. Kana only scowled and pulled her mask back over her face, but this seemed to encourage Kisame's raucous laughter as he began to accuse her of pouting.

* * *

Throaty chuckles echoed off of the cave walls the group had decided to take shelter in for the night, "Itachi, are you sure that she's the same age as you?" Kisame purred while eyeing the kunoichi standing next to him, "You're not overestimating by a few years?"

Kana rolled her eyes and made an attempt at folding up the sleeve of her Akatsuki cloak, only to watch the soft cotton flop back down past her fingertips. It was technically Itachi's spare, who was a good half a foot taller than her, so it hung off of her small five-foot one-inch frame like a large jacket on a wire hanger. She looked down at her feet where her Anbu boots were hidden by the dark fabric, which pooled slightly against the cave floor.

The Uchiha ignored his question, bringing his hands up to form a hand seal, "We're ready, Pain," he said passively. Looking over his shoulder, his gleaming red eyes focused on the woman, "Come, Kana. Keep close."

Shutting out Kisame's snickers, she discreetly picked up the sides of the cloak so she didn't trip on the hem and quickly strode to stand just behind and to the side of Itachi as the pair began forming hand seals. The rings on their hands glowed just a couple of seconds before a group of shimmering figures appeared – like rainbow phantoms, or screens that couldn't quite get a signal.

Kana realized that she was looking at the entirety of the Akatsuki, the mercenary organization that was secretly plotting to gather the jinchuriki to use them against the shinobi world. Even if they weren't physically manifesting inside the cavern, she felt a nervousness just looking at their flickering shapes.

"C'mon, Pain, what's this about?" a man with his right arm out of his cloak groaned, "I need to perform a ritual!"

" _Heeeey_ who's that next to Itachi?" a high voice with only one eye and spiky hair squealed, "Is that a _newcomer_?"

The figure with a strange eye pattern that looked oddly familiar spoke, "This is Kana Shimi. As of today she will be accompanying Itachi and Kisame as an unofficial member of the organization." His voice was deep and, though he was one of the shorter members, the way he spoke was very commanding and held authority. Though, Kana recognized him as Pain, their leader, by the purple dojutsu he wielded; those eyes had been difficult to forget when they met face to face two weeks ago.

A man with what looked like the outline of a high ponytail sucked his teeth in disapproval, "What the hell would they want with _that_ pipsqueak? Hey, Sasori, my man," he nudged the figure next to him, "Looks like you're not the shortest one here anymore!"

Whoever he nudged looked to only be about three feet tall, but was hunched over – either that wasn't his true form, or he was sitting. Kana chose not to respond, only staring straight ahead. "Fuck off," he snarled in a gravelly voice.

"Why's she wearing a mask? Is she ugly?" the high-voiced man without a cloak said happily, "I bet she's _really_ ugly if her face is covered up like that!"

The ponytailed man groaned, "Tobi, shut the fuck _up_! No one _cares_!"

There was a curious hum to her left, "I've heard that name before," a deep voice mused, strange-looking multi-colored eyes looking downward. Rustling told Kana that he was flipping through a book just before he made another humming noise, "That's right, you're also known as the Black Demon Fox of the Leaf… You have a pretty high bounty on your head, little girl. Ninety-five million ryo, to be exact - you've made a very rich man _very_ angry."

" _Black Demon Fox_? Ohhh that sounds so _scarrryyyy_!"

A threatening growl came from the ponytail man, "Tobi if you don't _shut the hell up_ I will kill you! Shit!"

"Ninety-five million ryo?" the ritual man asked incredulously, "Damn, Kakuzu, are you serious? Sure you didn't read that wrong?"

"Once she acquires Orochimaru's ring she will become an official member," Pain continued as if none of the bickering was occurring, "And she will be tasked with infiltration and resource acquisition for the organization."

"Isn't that Zetsu's job?"

Tobi squealed again, "Whooaaaa, Zetsu, looks like you're being _replaced_!"

"Oh _no_ , is that _true_?" a man with a strangely effeminate voice cooed. His outline made him look like some sort of alligator, or carnivorous plant, with a person in between the jaws.

Sasori looked over to where Tobi was standing and must have had a menacing glare, because the masked individual cringed with a fearful squeak.

"Zetsu is not being replaced," Pain affirmed, "But as our goal comes closer, we need to gather as much intel about each Great Shinobi Village as possible. her skills will prove to be invaluable to the Akatsuki."

Ponytail man huffed, "No way, what makes this _squirt_ so special?"

"We graduated the Academy and joined Anbu together as children," Itachi finally said, having been silent during the entire meeting, "Only a fool would judge someone's abilities based off of their size."

Kisame smirked, "Especially when you're not much taller than she is, Deidara."

Giggles erupted from Tobi, "He's kinda got a point, up until now the only person in the organization shorter than you was Sasori!"

Ritual man joined in on the laughter while Deidara scowled.

A woman with bright orange eyes looked over to Pain, who looked back at her briefly before nodding, "We will reconvene in one month."

With that, the figures flickered into nothingness.

Kana blinked stupidly at where they had all been previously standing, then looked up at the two men next to her, _'What the fuck just happened?'_ she thought to herself. To be perfectly honest she had expected a group of cold, calculating, hardened criminals that spoke in raspy voices and talked about… Shit, she didn't know, whatever criminals talked about. Instead she had met a group of-

"Such children," Itachi sighed tiredly with a subtle cough before turning on his heel over to the blanket he had laid out next to the fire.

 _'Yeah, that about covers it…_ ' Kana followed after the two as her mind moved to other places, dropping down onto her own blanket unceremoniously and reaching up under her mask to wiggle her fingers under her goggles, rubbing at tired eyes.

Her eyebrows furrowed when a particular subject began to nag at her, "Hey… What did he mean by I have to get Orochimaru's ring?" she asked cautiously.

Itachi's stony demeanor somehow hardened even further at the question and his eyes locked on the fire that flickered in front of them, "When Orochimaru departed, he took his Akatsuki ring with him. Pain wants it back, so your initiation requires that you break into his hideout and retrieve it."

Flashes of Kana's encounter with the sannin sped through her mind. She remembered the burning agony that ripped through every fiber of her being when Orochimaru sunk his fangs into her chest, marking her, with that wicked, evil smile. Memories of the way he purred in her ear with that sickening singsong voice while touching her face made her stomach twist.

Subconsciously she brought a closed fist up to cover the curse mark that had been placed there, lightly pinching the fabric of her too-large cloak.

"You're strong," Itachi's tone was calm, but soft, as if he had sensed her uneasiness, "He won't be able to touch you - just run in and out."

Swirling eyes brightened behind Kana's goggles, "It's not me I'm worried about," she half-lied before a thought occurred to her.

Across the fire, Kisame hummed, "It's the boy you're concerned about, isn't it? Sasuke?"

"Itachi, take off your shirt," she demanded, ignoring Kisame, while crawling over to where the man was sitting with a knee raised.

Pearly-black eyes stared back at her quizzically but he did as she wished, releasing the snaps on his cloak and slipping it down to bunch around his waist. Kana kneeled behind him as he tugged the lined mesh shirt over his head; Kisame raised an eyebrow at her when she looked up over his shoulder but remained silent.

Focusing a tiny amount of chakra to her fingertip in a very thin claw, Kana put a hand on the shoulder, noting how cold it felt beneath her gloved palm, to keep him stable. "This is going to hurt," she murmured. When Itachi nodded to show that he understood, the kunoichi brought the tiny scalpel down and cut into the flesh over his left shoulder blade.

A pained grunt escaped his lips while Kana systematically etched symbols and characters into his skin. They formed the same seals that were on each of her special kunai and she made sure to move slowly and pay special attention to her movements as to not screw anything up – she didn't exactly enjoy listening to Itachi's breathing come in short, ragged bursts between low moans so Kana didn't want to have to do this again.

When she was done, the kunoichi sat back on her heels to admire her handiwork. Blood trickled down his back from each thin incision, sliding over his pale skin in a series of small rivulets. Itachi looked over his shoulder at her expectantly and Kana found herself momentarily stunned at how morbidly beautiful he was like this.

She tore her eyes away from the macabre display to reach into the larger pouch strapped to her hip for first aid supplies, mentally cursing herself for not already having them at the ready. "I used a chakra scalpel to inscribe the same seal into your back as the ones on my kunai," she mumbled while dabbing a peroxide-soaked piece of gauze into his bleeding cuts, keeping him from twitching too much by tightening the hand on his shoulder.

"What good is that going to do?" Kisame asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Tossing the bloodied gauze to the side, she tore open a sterile pouch of bandages and gently taped it over the wound, "Do you know what the Flying Thunder God Technique is?" When Kisame shook his head, she explained, "It's a type of space-time ninjutsu that was created by the Second Hokage. I mark a place that I want to teleport to with a seal that's unique to me and activate it with my chakra. Though…" she stuffed the masking tape into her pouch and began collecting the used materials, "The kunai part comes from the Fourth Hokage."

The man nodded, "And by using chakra to carve into Itachi's skin, you're making sure that it permanently scars. But… Why?"

"Because in doing so it allows her to teleport to my side," Itachi answered, pulling his shirt back over his head.

"Couldn't she just give you one of her kunai, though?"

Kana blinked at him, "What good would that do if someone takes it? Or he loses it? Kisame, my purpose is-" she stopped herself before she could finish. _Did_ he know why she had joined their entourage? Kana looked down at Itachi, who turned his face up to hers curiously as if he were waiting for her to finish her sentence.

 _'He knows, right?'_ she asked, eyes locked on his, who nodded.

She looked back up at the clearly confused swordsman, "My entire purpose now narrows down to keeping Itachi alive. I need to be able to get to him no matter where either of us are, and this is the only surefire way for me to know that the technique will get me to him. Just…" Kana looked back down into the face that was still peering up at her, "Don't, like, get your skin cut off or something. Please."

Amusement glittered in his pretty black eyes, _'And ruin your hard work?'_

It should have brought a sense of warmth to her, but the fondness in his mind's voice felt like a punch to the gut. She gripped the dirtied medical supplies in a fist and rose to a standing position, stuffing them into the pouch on her hip before shrugging off the cloak and chucking it over to her blanket.

"I'll take watch. You two sleep" Kana muttered curtly.

Her mission wasn't about friendliness – about watching a group of men bicker amongst themselves and lob petty insults, or prattling on about chakra and the best weight for a sword. No, Kana was here to delay Itachi's inevitable death so he could continue directing the Akatsuki away from the Leaf and the Nine Tails while simultaneously keeping her out of Orochimaru's grasp.

Kana exited the cave and jumped up to where the small plateau ended, sitting down and dangling her legs over the cave's mouth. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

 **Note** : Ugh. I seem to keep making Kana more and more unhappy. I think I just enjoy torturing her?


	2. Chapter 2

Neji was on a mission.

Kana watched the short flicker of light coming from the lavender medallion she held in her hand next to her face, paying attention to the duration of each small burst of light. Every time the light faltered or paused, she couldn't help but feel worry nibble at her heart until there was another flash that told her that Neji had used some sort of jutsu.

It was too late for him to be training, even with the time zone differences between the Hidden Leaf and the Land of Earth where the group was currently residing in. Neji always trained in the morning and early afternoon but the sun had gone down many hours ago, so the flickering medallion told her that he was in some sort of battle.

There was no way Kana was going to get any sleep tonight so she kicked off the blanket that was haphazardly thrown over her body and sat up with an irritated sigh. At the time it had been given to her, the medallion filled her with all sorts of fluffy warm feelings of nostalgia, but now it felt like a harbinger of dread. Whenever she looked down at it, she couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't glowing because Neji was safe, or because he was dead. It didn't help that he was now taking A and B ranked missions more frequently as a highly skilled jonin.

Draping her blanket over Itachi's slumbering form – which was cocooned in a blanket of his own - she made her way over to where Kisame was keeping watch, jumping up into the tree branches and tapping him on the shoulder.

The Mist-nin flinched dramatically and reached for Samehada with a startled gasp; his look of surprise turned to that of agitation when he saw the familiar Anbu mask.

"Dammit, you're just like him!" he growled, releasing his sword's handle, "You're like a fucking cat – you make no goddamn _noise_."

Kana frowned behind her mask, "Do you want to be relieved or not?"

Beady white eyes narrowed at her and Kisame shifted on the tree branch so that he was facing her, raising one leg up to his chest, "Explain something to me. Do you distrust us so much that you refuse to sleep in our presence, or is there some other reason that's keeping you from sleeping longer than an hour at a time?"

"Who _cares_?" she snapped, "Just go to bed."

"Listen here, brat, you need to remember that even though you're Itachi's friend you're still new here!" he snarled, standing up on the branch to tower over Kana, "It's time you learned your place!"

She put the medallion back into her hip pouch and sighed, scratching a sudden itch on her forearm, "You're wrong. Itachi and I… We aren't friends, not anymore."

Monstrously large hands grabbed the front of Kana's jumpsuit and Root jacket, yanking her up into the air so that she was eye level with Kisame, whose gaze held an intense fury that genuinely surprised the kunoichi. She looked down at the hands that fisted her spandex and wondered how he managed to hold her up like this despite the fabric being so stretchy, then figured it probably had more to do with the fact that her jacket and bra straps had also been trapped in his angry clutch; Kana kicked a dangling leg to feel how the fabric moved as her body swayed, which then confirmed her theory.

"How _dare_ you?!" Kisame all but shouted.

With a long sigh, she let her head fall back so Kana could look up at the stars, "Look… I don't know what he's told you, but I've figured out that you two are pretty close in some form or another considering how unnecessarily angry you are right now. So maybe he's told you things that seem to contradict what I'm trying to tell you," she muttered, "But I'm not here as his childhood friend, or old teammate. He needs my skills. That's all."

A tightening in the Mist-nin's grip was precedent to Kana being almost violently shaken as he growled angrily, "Cut the _shit_ , little girl! Do you know how much it tore him _apart_ to take you away from the Leaf?! How about you say that again without your stupid mask hiding your-"

Moonlight glinted off of Kana's blade as she pulled out her tanto and quickly brought it to rest against Kisame's throat; she turned her head to the side to move around the hand that had reached for her mask and nudged it to the side. "Touch my mask again and I will kill you," she said flatly.

Muscles flexed under the man's blue skin as he clenched his jaw just before her head whipped to the side and a finger raised to tell him to be silent. In the distance there was the faint sound of gasping and Kana quickly wrenched herself out of the death grip, using Kisame's still outstretched arms to launch herself down to the forest floor, so she could race over to the quivering figure beneath two blankets.

She pulled back the blankets that had become tangled around Itachi's form and turned him onto his back, "I told you not to lay on your side," she scolded while helping him into a sitting position, "It puts too much pressure on your lungs."

Itachi gurgled something incoherent in response and continued coughing while a small river of blood dribbled down his chin; he raised his arms and placed them behind his neck when Kana nudged them. His body bucked and twitched under her hands as Itachi's lungs fought against the buildup of necrotized tissue and phlegm, but it was obvious that he was making an attempt to keep still for Kana so she could work.

A strong breeze rolled through the sparse forest and the man shivered almost violently, bringing his arms down to pull the blankets further up to his hips.

"I'm almost done," she assured him, noting how his ribs had begun to stick out rather sharply; Kana would have to be stricter in making him eat more. _'Though that would imply that he's actually_ been _eating… Fucking Azathioprine.'_

The thought made Kana look up from the tinkling green glow to Itachi's face, which had begun to show just how sick he really was in the last couple of months. When he had been confronted by Guy and Jiraiya a couple of years ago his face still had color and warmth, with almost rounded cheeks like his younger brother's. Now, though, his high cheekbones were much more prominent and the hollows of Itachi's cheeks looked nearly sunken; there were also dark rings around his eyes that spoke of months of interrupted sleep.

Just because she knew Itachi no longer cared for her, it didn't mean she didn't care for _him_ still, and the sight of Itachi looking and feeling so frail sent a pang through her chest. Kana had to tear her gaze away from his pained face to keep her weary heart cracking any further.

When the dead lung tissue and blood had been removed, and Itachi's strained breathing reduced to a light wheeze, she dropped her hands down to the large pouch on her hip and rifled through it. Kana almost dropped the bottle of cough syrup she had dug out when she felt cold lips brush against the shell of her ear.

"I'm sorry I made you feel that way."

She hooked the corner of her lip under her canine and kept her face down while pouring the viscous fluid into a tiny cup, shifting back a little to put distance between them. Even though Itachi couldn't see her face, Kana kept her gaze averted as she brought the cup up to his lips, "Here. I need to get more medicine, but this should get you through the night."

While Itachi tilted his head back, Kana's other hand was opening a larger wooden jar, squeezing it between her knees so she had enough leverage to unscrew the top one-handed. Scooping a generous amount of the slightly opaque cream onto her gloved fingers, the kunoichi's hand dipped under his lined mesh shirt to apply it to his chest.

Itachi sighed and dropped his head onto her shoulder as she massaged the mentholated ointment into his skin, "It was never my intention to make you think-"

"Hopefully this will make breathing a little easier," Kana quickly cut in, trying to keep the subject off of her talk with Kisame.

"I just thought that-"

"I'm running out of supplies, we should-"

"You've been so cold-"

"Head into a larger village so I can stock up before-"

"Kana, please-"

" _No_!"

She quickly screwed the cap back onto the bamboo pot and tucked it into her pouch, pulling away from Itachi and standing up, "I don't want to hear it."

No longer incapacitated by coughing, she could hear him stand up from his sleeping bag as Kana walked away; she wasn't sure where she was going but she just wanted to get away from him. Cold fingers wrapped around her wrist and she quickly yanked herself out of the loose grip.

"I never stopped loving you, Kana," his deep voice was only barely louder than a whisper, but it still was enough to stop Kana in her tracks, "If nothing else, I want you to know that."

The canvas material of her gloves made an audible twisting noise when she tightly curled her hands into fists in a vain attempt at keeping them from trembling. Another gale blew through the rocky forest but the chilly air barely registered in Kana's mind, which was more focused on how close Itachi was standing behind her now that she had stopped.

His cold hands reached down to hers, fingertips peeling her hand out of its fist and brushing along her palm before resting at her fingertips where he pinched lightly. "Lord Hokage insisted that I perform the mission with you all those years ago," he murmured, "When it was first discussed, he insisted that you assist me with the destruction of my clan… And join the Akatsuki with me, but left it to my discretion due to the nature of the assignment."

 _"You know that if that was an option I would have your bag already packed, Kana."_

 _"You have to stay here. Protect the village – protect Neji and Sasuke."_

"You told me _no_ ," she hissed.

Itachi's fingertips squeezed hers a little tighter in response, "I only did what I did because I know how much you love Konoha. I couldn't subject you to a life of being scorned by everyone you loved. I believed that by shouldering the burden and making it solely my own, I could save you from knowing that pain."

Angry tears pricked at the backs of Kana's eyes, and she could taste blood from where she was viciously biting into her lip. "So… You waited until I had finally begun to move on to bring me with you." Her voice was soft, and shook with the sobs that tried forcing their way up her tightening throat, "I understand you had it much, _much_ worse… But do you understand just how miserable I was without you?"

She swore inwardly at herself as her breathing was reduced to unsteady gasps, but continued, "I didn't know if it was because you didn't want me with you, or if you honestly couldn't bring me, but I didn't understand how much I relied on you until after you were gone… A-and Sasuke pushing me away… I felt as if my entire world had come to a complete stop… I-I didn't know h-how to cope without you n-next to me…" Hot tears began to spill over her eyes, only to be caught by Kana's goggles, and her shoulders shook with each sob, "I was so alone. N-no one understood wh-what it w-was like to gr-ow up being u-used as a tool… To... be cursed with a curse of a gift... I-it was l-like I had… Had lost a piece of myself… Like half of my heart had been ripped away and hidden..."

And as a result, she pushed everyone away and closed herself up from the world.

Fingers laced in with hers and gripped tightly, "Kana, I…"

Kana pulled away from Itachi, suddenly furious, "But then I got _better_. I made _friends_ and became _happy_ with life. And as soon as I had truly, honestly put everything behind me, you came _back_ ," she spat the words out as if she were cursing the wide-eyed man, "You were back, but I told myself that I wasn't going to let myself fall into that dark place again. You know I had a lover? _Yeah_ – his name was Raido. It was _happy_ ," Kana laughed dryly, "And then Danzo forced me to join Root, forced me to cut _everyone_ out of my life that made me happy again, forced me to train _every single day_ from dawn to dusk - until I collapsed and had to be carried back to the barracks - when I wasn't on missions with his emotionless _robots_... Placed a curse mark on my body just like Orochimaru did so I couldn't even _tell_ anyone how he threatened to _kill_ my friends if he caught me seeing them…"

Taking a long, deep breath, she forced herself to slow down from the frantic pace at which she had begun to speak in. "It would have been… I would have been fine… With you – with leaving the Hidden Leaf – if you had told me to come with you that night, but now… Now I'm with you, but I'm just waiting… Just counting down the days until you leave me _again_ …" Kana trailed off and squeezed her eyes shut at the burning sensation of her tears filling up her goggles, crying freely into the hand she had slipped under her Anbu mask.

She didn't bother with fighting when Itachi closed the distance between them and pulled her trembling body into his chest. She didn't resist when he unhooked her mask and dropped it to the rocky ground, or when he tugged her goggles down to her neck, wiping at the tears with the backs of his cold hands as they spilled out over her clothed cheeks.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "At the time I thought I was doing something right for you… I realize now that I had only done it to spare myself the guilt of making you unhappy." Itachi tilted her head back and leaned down, touching their bare foreheads together, "That day in the forest, when we encountered the Nine Tails, I realized just how much I truly craved your presence by my side. That's why I insisted that Danzo allow you to come with me – I couldn't bear being without you any longer after having you so close to me then."

Using the hand he had snaked into her hair, he tilted her head further back to brush his cheek against hers, "I'm sorry for my selfishness."

"I hate you," she sobbed, "I hate you _so much_."

"I know, and I'm so sorry I've done this to you," he whispered.

Kana pressed her face into his chest, ignoring the medicinal smell of menthol, and clung to him as tightly as she could, as if he was going to fall apart if she let go, "I hate you!"

"I know."

"You're horrible!"

"I'm sorry, Kana."

"I hate you!"

"I know."

"I…" The hands that fisted Itachi's shirt tightened and her knees gave out beneath her weight, "I… I..."

Itachi sank to the ground with her, one arm lowering to her waist to keep her from completely collapsing to the dirt, "I missed you, too," he breathed, "Enduring all of this without-" his confession was cut off by a sudden coughing fit that was quickly relieved by a glowing palm on his back. The man sighed and tightened his arms around Kana.

The pair sat wordlessly for what felt like hours, the only sounds being Kana's lessening sobs and Itachi's gentle, if slightly strained, breathing.

That was, until Kisame's approach grabbed their attention.

"I hate to break up your dramatic moment," he hissed, "But we have company."

Kana sprang to her feet, activating her Kurogan and scanning the area while the three raced back to their camp to grab what few belongings they had. She quickly scooped up the medical supplies that had been carelessly dropped onto the ground with the mental note to clean up in the morning, and stuffed them into her backpack. "It's a retrieval team," she slung her bag over her shoulders, "A really weird one - two Anbu, two tokujos."

"Anyone we know?" Itachi asked as they jumped into the trees; any tenderness that he held in his eyes had been replaced by the man's usual icy demeanor.

She frowned, "You probably remember Yugao, but she's the only one you know. The other Anbu is a sensor type medical-nin that was recruited only a few years ago. The first tokubetsu jonin uses crows, the other is one of the Hokage's body guards that uses a poisoned sword."

The three increased their speed, wind blowing their cloaks back away from their legs as they jumped from branch to branch. On any other night Kana probably would have appreciated the way the breeze felt on her cheeks…

"Fuuuuuck!" she groaned angrily, coming to a stop, "I forgot my mask."

Kisame sucked his teeth, "Don't tell me you're going to go back for a stupid _mask_ , little girl. Just forget about it – those Leaf-nin have probably already picked the camp clean by now."

It was true, she could see the team checking their abandoned blankets and tracks as they spoke. There were only going to be a few moments left until the team was hot on their trail again, which made Kana wonder just how they had managed to track them this far into the Land of Earth. Even with the tokujos' impressive tracking skills and Tirahashi's sensor abilities, they were pretty far away from the Leaf. Not only that, but even the Anbu stationed on the border hadn't been able to catch up to them.

"But… It's my _mask_ ," she almost whined, looking back at the two, "I _made_ it. It's _mine_. You don't understand!" Anbu masks were entirely unique to its wearer – it was the only true symbol of her pledge to protect Konoha anymore.

A cold hand gripped her wrist, "I understand the importance of your mask," Itachi said calmly as he pulled her with him, "But we don't have time. I'm sorry."

Kana whimpered in protest but allowed herself to be tugged back into a run just before the team found their tracks. The trio broke into a sprint to put as much distance between themselves and the Leaf-nin as possible, which wasn't entirely easy considering they each had varying levels of speed. Kisame wasn't necessarily fast, with most of his training being put into strength and kenjutsu, and Itachi's lung capacity had been greatly reduced in the last few months due to his ailment. Kana found herself having to slow herself considerably to keep pace with the two men.

After nearly three hours, with the sun beginning to rise, a wet cough from Itachi prefaced him coming to a full stop to sag against a tree with a trembling hand covering his mouth.

' _Shit_ ,' Kana grabbed onto a smaller branch and swung around it to throw herself into a flip and come to a stop. The man doubled over and began hacking almost violently, red specks staining his pale fingers like a series of red blossoms.

She jumped over to where he was standing and quickly pulled the snaps of his cloak open to press glowing hands to his ribs, "Kisame, my pouch – need cough syrup –"

Itachi shook his head, "No time," he gurgled before a chunk of some abominable combination of phlegm and blood joined the bloody spit in his hand.

"We need to keep moving," Kisame agreed.

Swearing, Kana looked back to see the team closing in on them. They had been slowly gaining on them in the few hours they'd been running, and there'd be no way they wouldn't be caught at the rate things were going. Even if Kisame were to carry Itachi, it would only slow the Mist-nin down even further. Kana wouldn't be able to run at her top speed, either, given the significant size difference between the two.

She flicked her ring out and swiped her thumb over the razor-sharp claw that sprung free, running the smear of blood over her forearm where the seal for Hanako was tattooed. Throwing her arms around Itachi, the kunoichi quickly pulled him over to the bakaneko when she appeared in a puff of smoke and helped him climb onto her back. For the briefest of moments Kana siphoned a small amount of chakra from Itachi; it was just enough for what she needed it to do without him being able to feel it.

"Both of you get going," Kana ordered while she pulled her gloves off of her hands to stuff them into the pouch on the back of her hip, "I'll hold them off and catch up later."

With the Leaf shinobi being nearly on top of them, neither men bothered with arguing and took off. If she were to get in a bind, they both knew that Kana could always just teleport to wherever Itachi was thanks to the grisly tattoo she had placed on his back; all she needed to do was keep the group at bay until they were far enough away.

Kana pulled a scroll out from her belt and quickly pulled it open to summon six of her kunai, throwing them in six different directions in case she needed a quick getaway, making sure one was thrown behind her if one of them tried to give her the slip.

The team stopped a few dozen feet away, all in defensive stances; another chilly breeze rolled through.

"They really sent you after me," she said sadly, "That's cruel."

Raido shook his head, "I _volunteered_."

"We've been trying to find you for a long time," Aoba called, panting heavily, "You're pretty hard to track, as expected as a former member of the Anbu Black Ops." To make his point, he waved her mask in the air.

Her eyes narrowed but Kana ignored him, "You hate me _that_ much, Raido?" Hurt flashed across his scarred features, but he didn't respond so she kept talking, "I didn't think they were still sending people out after us, honestly. I mean an Anbu with sensory skills like Tirahashi, someone as freakishly good at tracking as Aoba, and two swordsmen that specialize in assassination? Isn't that a bit overkill?"

All she had to do was keep talking and delay a fight – Itachi and Kisame were already pretty far away by this point thanks to Hanako.

"But still… Considering you have Aoba with you… You intend to take me alive – which means that Raido's blade most likely isn't poisoned. Unless you plan on _irritating_ me to death with those stupid birds," she made sure to add a haughty tone to her voice, hoping it would mask the dread she felt over fighting her comrades.

Aoba and Raido worked particularly well in non-assassination missions due to the crows being able to conceal his movements so he could get close enough with Kokuto. However, that always involved Raido wearing all black clothing or at least his black cloak so that he blended in with the crows - his wearing the traditional jonin attire told Kana that Aoba was strictly here for intelligence gathering. Unlike Inoichi, the tokubetsu jonin didn't need physical contact to get inside of her head; she would have to be careful.

Despite that, she couldn't help but pay special attention to the way Yugao's body was positioned – it was almost as if she fully intended to kill Kana, and she had conspired with Tirahashi in advance. If she weren't already focusing on using Itachi's chakra to activate her third dojutsu and combine it with her Kurogan, Kana would have delved into her brain to figure out what the hell was going on.

With a heavy, defeated sigh, Raido straightened up from his attack stance, taking a step forward. "I don't want to pretend to know what it was like to grow up and live in your shoes," he called, "But I know you've lived a tough life, that's why you took so long to finally reach out to others... I know that you still continued to keep those around you at an arm's length, bottling your feelings up until you're alone or with Kakashi…"

Her heart and stomach twisted in opposite directions when his expression darkened at the mention of her old friend, "It kills me to know that you had to go to someone else for that kind of emotional support. But, please, Kana…" Raido continued walking until he was just a few feet in front of the kunoichi, who was already reaching back for the sword on her back, "Sometimes I would see a darkness in you that goes just beyond loneliness and depression, and... I wondered if the reason you were always so ambitious and eager to go on missions is because of a self destructive edge you carry."

Raido's voice dropped to just barely louder than a whisper as he gazed at her intensely, wearing his raw emotions on his face just like he always did, "Your name means sadness… It's almost like a curse," the man murmured.

Kana Shimi – Sadness, or Sad Smear; her clan had specifically created the name for those who were born with the kekkei tota.

"Let me take that curse away from you," he whispered, "Marry me."

There was a flash of light that _must_ have burned his retinas, reminding her that she still had her goggles down around her neck, but he didn't recoil or squint at the way Kana's eyes responded to his request. "I… What…?" She had heard his words, but her mind was struggling to comprehend what exactly was happening, " _What_?"

Warm lips brushed against her own clothed ones, almost experimentally, before sealing them in a ghost of a kiss. "Marry me," Raido repeated, "Marry me, kitten. Come home with me. Become my bride."

When Kana's lips remained still, not returning the kiss, he pulled back to give her a look that expressed his disappointed worry, "Unless you don't…"

A bare knee slammed into his gut, throwing him up into the air a few inches, before Kana's strapped boot violently connected into his side with a sickening crunch of his ribs cracking, sending him crashing into a boulder a few dozen feet away.

"That's _sick_ ," she chuckled, yanking up her goggles with one hand and pulling out her katana with the other. A black shield appeared over Kana's back to block Yugao's strike, wrapping over the blade and slithering up the Anbu's arm, "You _really_ thought I wouldn't notice Yugao sneaking around while you tried to distract me? What part of _360 degree vision_ do you not understand?"

The woman used her chakra to snap Yugao's wrist before teleporting away from Aoba's shuriken, listening to _'putt, putt, putt,'_ of the metal stars cutting through his teammate's flak jacket. She yanked the kunai out of the ground and flickered over to Aoba to take advantage of his distracted horror by snatching her mask out his loose grip, teleporting to the next kunai. He still allowed himself to panic too easily.

Snapping her mask in place, Kana slung one of the kunai at Tirahashi and quickly teleported over to it, ripping it out of his chest and kicking off of his midsection to jump back. She really didn't need him healing Yugao right now.

"Kana, please," Raido coughed, picking himself off of the ground, "Just come _home_ –"

"So I can be _executed_? No thanks," Kana laughed dryly and raised a shield so that Aoba's crows slammed into it, falling to the ground like a bunch of rocks; she vaguely wondered if her shield had the same effect as when a bird slams into a window. "Look, I've already gotten into your heads," she lied, "I know what you're going to do before you _actually_ do it so this fight's going to go nowhere. You _can't_ hit me."

To prove her point, she teleported to the third kunai to avoid Tirahashi's Mud Needle, "I was specifically trained to _not_ be hit. So just go home. I'm _tired_ ," she said with an agitated sigh. It was true – Kana never slept well when she was away from home and, as a result, she hadn't slept properly since leaving the village. It had been a full week since she had gotten any sleep at all other than a brief nap in the shower. Not only that, but using the combined dojutsu she wielded was beginning to take its toll.

Glittering eyes locked on Raido's just as he had pulled himself up to his feet and Kana quickly worked on putting him under a genjutsu so, while he was imagining himself turning into petals, she could swipe her still bleeding thumb over the seal tattooed into her hand. Kana quickly placed her palm on the ground so that black barriers formed around each of the Leaf-nin.

"You tattooed seals into your body so you don't have to form hand signs…" Yugao noted after regaining consciousness, "Just how many of those tattoos do you have?"

"Yes let's just - talk about all of my seals and what they do - so you can use them against me later," Kana drawled between teleports to each kunai so she could pick them up and seal them back into her scroll, "Makes perfect sense."

The kunoichi thanked the gods she didn't believe in that Tsunade had only sent these four instead of shinobi that were familiar with her abilities like Root agents or Kakashi; it would have been a lot more difficult to deal with a Sharingan and the Aburames' bugs. Kana was even more appreciative of the fact that the sensor type chosen was Tirahashi and not Neji.

With that thought, she released the genjutsu on Raido and formed the Seal of Confrontation. There was a brief hesitation on her part as her eyes lingered on the man cradling his abdomen, drinking in his appearance and fighting the urge to run over to his sagging body. Kana wanted to take him into her arms, to make the excruciating pain she had inflicted on him to go away. All of it. She wanted to use her chakra to erase the scar she knew was over the ribs she had broken. She wanted to restore his bones. She wanted to take away every horrible, awful thing that had been said to Raido the day Kana had to end things once and for all.

But she didn't. She _couldn't_.

 _'Rairai, I'm so sorry.'_

Focusing her chakra, Kana tore her eyes away from her former lover and reached out to Itachi's mark to appear by his side, who was still coughing on the ground next to Kisame, albeit much less violently so. Her hands slid under his cloak and continued to fix what damage had been done in their marathon sprint, "How close are we to the nearest major village?" she looked up at Kisame, "I need to get some supplies. I ran out of medicine yesterday and I'm just about out of everything else." While that was very true, Kana just wanted something to talk about to keep the two men from asking any questions about what had just happened.

The shark man chuckled and shook his head, "You really went back for that damn mask…"

"No, they _stole_ it. I took it back, is all."

He laughed again, but shrugged and sat down next to Itachi, whose coughing had been reduced to pained wheezes, "We're about fifty klicks east of the Hidden Stone."

Kana crinkled her nose at the thought – the Village Hidden in the Stones was one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, but their economy was below satisfactory and weren't necessarily known for their medical prowess. "What do you think the chances are of a rock village being well stocked in medical herbs?" she muttered darkly.

"Not every village can spoil its medics like Konoha," Itachi chided, placing his hands over hers, "I've seen you make do with worse." The frown she wore behind her masks deepened but she didn't bother protesting when he pulled her hands away from his chest, "Let's get moving. Once we capture this bounty we can work on getting your ring."

 _"Marry me, kitten."_

After that proposal-slash-distraction, Kana didn't want to think about rings for a good long while. Never mind _Orochimaru's_.

With a sniff, Kisame placed a heavy hand on the kunoichi's shoulder a few moments after they began walking, pulling her to a stop as Itachi continued walking. White eyes peered down at her curiously, "You're bleeding." It wasn't a question.

She pulled her shoulder away from where he was holding her and continued walking, slipping a hand underneath her mask to release the blood that had been pooling in her goggles.

* * *

 **Note** : Nothing like shredding your ally into a bazillion pieces to get your frustrations out :) That Christmas bit might be posted as a sort of short series to Growing Up, because I got a bunch of ideas for what could be a cute little short story for the holidays. Also, damn. This ended up being a huge chapter, even by my standards.


	3. Chapter 3

Even at night the beauty of the Land of Flowers was absolutely incontestable. The colors of the forests and rivers had even Kisame captivated as they travelled in silence to the next bounty that had been assigned to them, which was placed on the other side of the continent to where they had been, much to their dismay. Even with the trek through the Lands of Wind and Desert, Kana found herself almost immediately grateful for the assignment from Pain once the trio had stepped into the country.

She looked down at a bright purple and blue flower that seemed to almost glow in the moonlight, and a gloved finger gingerly grazed the very edge of the petals, careful to not disrupt the small caterpillar resting in the center. At first Kana considered picking it to bring it with her, but decided to not ruin the beauty of the clearing they sat on the edge of.

A cool breeze rolled through to where they were perched in the trees; it was just warm enough for Kana to not shiver and she almost wished to have the liberty of shedding her cloak and masks so she could revel in the mild weather.

"Remember, this one is to be taken alive," Itachi's voice was like dark velvet in the comfortable silence, snapping her attention away from the beautiful flower.

Kisame grimaced, knowing full well that the statement was directed at him, before sneering, "But that doesn't mean we can't kill the guards on our way in," he purred.

Their teammate sighed but shrugged half-heartedly, "Do what you want."

Kana lunged forward just a second after Kisame, with Itachi hot on their heels. For a brief second she thought about pulling out her katana as to avoid getting herself covered in blood, only to remember that her skills in kenjutsu was one of her two hidden skills she kept from the rest of the Akatsuki, and she released the handle. Instead she just focused enough chakra to her gloved hand so that she could form a small barrier around her arm that extended into the blade of her Chakra Demon Arm.

The guards at the door only had seconds to prepare for the three shinobi that suddenly appeared before them, and could only raise kunai in a feeble defense that the two swordsmen quickly cut through, moving onto the next merc-turned-guards before their companions had even finished falling to the ground.

Blood splashed over the arm of her cloak as Kana drove her chakra blade through one guard's chest, the rest splattering over her mask when she pulled out. There was a small sense of satisfaction felt as the glimmer of life faded away in his steely gaze that spurred her into running faster down the hall to grab at the man still sipping on his tea.

"What kind of guard takes a tea break?" she purred in his ear just a second after flickering over to his side, one hand gripping his throat while five black chakra claws formed over her fingertips, slicing his skin open as they grew. He struggled once but stopped when he realized that the movement only caused for more tears in his throat to form. "Can't expect much more than that from some shit-for-brains ex-merc, I guess."

Kana almost laughed at the look of horror on the man's face as he watched Kisame slice his friend into ribbons, but quickly frowned instead. If her math was correct then that mean that Kisame was on his eighth kill, while she was only on four.

A competitive spark from years of training with Guy and Kakashi ignited, and Kana suddenly felt incredibly agitated for her lazy performance. Without another word she closed her fist around the guard's trachea and other major components that got in her way, tearing them out and swiftly sprinting around the curve of the hall to tackle the next guard to the ground, her demon arm buried into his gut before he could even register what was happening to him.

Somewhere there was a gurgled shout that was obviously meant to alert the rest of the guard of intruders, and Kana couldn't help but feel a new rush of adrenaline at the idea – she was good at stealth, _damn_ good, but she'd rather fight someone that fought back every now and then.

Sure enough, the sound of multiple heavy footfalls echoed off of the cramped halls just moments later; it was like music to her ears.

She looked over her shoulder just long enough to make sure that the two men were still with her before activating her Kurogan to figure out where the group was and track them down. The demon arm quickly changed shape to that of a whip so she could have one medium-range and one short-range weapon, and Kana wasted no time in cracking the whip into the first guard that turned the corner.

Kisame was soon on her heels and they quickly turned the chamber they had entered into a bloodbath, leaving bloodied corpses still twitching in their death throes while Itachi watched from behind; his Sharingan gleamed in the dim lighting but he made no effort to join the fray.

The lack of participation on the Uchiha's part came as no surprise to Kana, considering he had always been a pacifist that disdained violence – it was part of why they worked so well together. On missions they were assigned to, she almost always would allow Itachi to come up with the plans, and she would do as much of the killing for him as possible. It wasn't as if Kana had _liked_ killing back then, she just didn't want to see Itachi suffer any more than he had to.

Though, as a coping mechanism, she _began_ to enjoy the killing. There was a sense of accomplishment and power that Kana felt as she climbed up and around the body of one of the larger guards like an insect so she could put hands on either side of his body, and pulse her black chakra into his body; she couldn't help but feel a thrill race up her spine when his body collapsed to the floor, organs bursting and bleeding into one other like a fountain.

It made her feel powerful when Kana focused chakra to her leg and released it so that black flame-like energy arced with her foot as she imitated her father figure's Leaf Hurricane.

It told her that she was still alive, that she hadn't been defeated just yet, when she felt her opponent's sternum cave in on itself while the chakra burned at the two others that had attempted to flank her.

Only a few minutes passed until the three were outside of what she presumed to be a well-created entrance to a safe room, only two bodies lying in a small pile together in their target's bedroom. With her Kurogan activated Kana could easily see that the gang leader was behind the wall she was staring through, but she couldn't figure out how to activate the door's mechanism to open it.

"He's back here," she said a little too breathlessly as the high of combat began to wear off and Kana was forced to feel the effects of using that much chakra without absorbing any to replenish her stores, "It's some sort of hidden door… To a safe room."

"That jutsu you used when we were pinned down by the sannin a year or so ago, can you use it?" Kisame asked while readjusting the bloodied wrappings on Samehada.

Itachi placed a hand on her shoulder that she instantly jerked away from, "I can take care of it, you've-"

"No, I just…" she doubled over to place her hands on her knees, "I need a second. That's all. Don't use Amaterasu for something as stupid as this." Her body was beginning to ache and she felt tired – too tired for how early into the night it was – thanks to the mild chakra depletion that was rapidly catching up to her, but Kana was more than aware of the effects the Mangekyo had on its wielder. Unlike Danzo, Itachi didn't have a collection of spare eyeballs just floating around, so she didn't want him to permanently damage his eyesight over something as stupid as a _wall_.

When the kunoichi had caught her breath, she straightened and flicked her black ring open so Kana could nick her scarred thumb while pulling her other glove off with her teeth, swiping the blood over the tattoo that circled her fingers and the back of her hand. Danzo's idea, of course.

When her hands had been placed against the cool stone wall, glittering eyes slid shut in concentration while Kana began to carefully form a chakra barrier prison around the door to the safe room, making sure that it was solid enough so that none of the rubble could fly out and render their target's head into a pile of rock and smushed brain matter.

A hand placed between her shoulder blades snapped her concentration in two, and she grit her teeth while simultaneously twisting away from Itachi's touch.

"You're reaching your limit. Let me help you," he said sternly. Kana only shook her head and focused her attention back on the wavering barrier. With a deep breath to brace herself against the feeling of her chakra levels dropping into the red zone, she pushed as much into her hands and arms as possible.

A thin groan pushed up her throat at the discomfort of dropping to zero but the subsequent rush of energy from the Earth curse mark on her chest soon replaced the sensation. When there was enough build up of the still unfamiliar, almost slimy-feeling chakra, Kana released it in one massive burst that completely obliterated the wall and entrance to the safe room.

Itachi's hand was soon pulling her back as Kisame rushed in, and he turned her body to give her a look of disbelief, "Why would you-"

"I can control it," she cut him off, jerking away from his touch, "I just needed more than what I had. I'm fine."

Truth be told, Kana hated using the mark and avoided doing so as often as she could. Every time she found herself being forced into a situation that required its usage, Kakashi's warnings and Guy's pleads rang in her head like goddamn curse marks of their own. However, the kunoichi had been doing very well on keeping herself closed away from both Itachi and Kisame and had no intention of opening up to either of them – not when Itachi was so close to death and Kisame was, well, a man that betrayed his own village's Anbu.

Not like she knew much about the shark man, she noted, as he knocked their target hard enough to render him unconscious before slinging him over one of his broad shoulders like a ragdoll. The most information Kana had learned about Kisame other than his battle tactics was that he had been a part of Anbu before going rogue, though she didn't exactly find out why. It was almost ironic, really, that the three of them were assigned together.

 _'Well, not really assigned_ together _…'_ Kana mused. She knew that Zetsu was technically her teammate, but their assignments required them to be far apart and on their own so they rarely ever actually met in person. With her former connection to Itachi, no one seemed to really question it when there was a meeting and Kana just happened to be with the pair.

Still, taking a comrade's chakra was too intimate for her to be comfortable with it.

Looking somewhat miffed, Itachi turned on his heel and followed Kisame out of the bedroom chamber without another word, something that Kana was definitely grateful for.

* * *

"Are you going to kill me?"

An irritated sigh escaped her lips as their captive asked the same goddamn question he had been asking every few hours over the last couple of days, "I don't know, _you_ tell me. Are you _dead_?"

The daimyo's son furrowed his brow in confusion and cocked his head to the side, somehow able to look casually curious while still looking as if he was about to crap his pants at any given moment. Which he had already done. _Twice_.

When he didn't answer, Kana reached over to grab the base of his skull tightly, "Whoever you pissed off wants you alive. Probably so _he_ can kill you. I don't _give_ a fuck. But you're not dead yet, which means _we_ won't kill you. Now shut the _fuck_ up or I swear to _god_ I will break every single one of your ribs."

With that, she channeled enough healing chakra to his brain to knock him back on his ass; all three of them were tired of listening to his whimpering.

"I was wondering when you were going to snap," Itachi commented, dropping down next to where Kana was sitting at the base of the tree, "Your patience seems to have only gotten worse with age, it appears."

While that was probably true, most of the irritation she felt came from the fact that she hadn't slept properly since leaving the village – at best she would allow herself a few cat naps while in the shower, and everything else was pushed off with food pills, stealing enough chakra from random people on the street to keep her going, and sheer willpower.

When Kana didn't respond, he reached over and slipped his hand beneath hers with a soft sigh, "I don't suppose I'll be able to convince you to let me take watch?"

"I'm basically a sensor type. I should be the one on watch," she muttered, pulling her hand away from the inviting warmth of Itachi's and folding her arms over her thin body.

As opposed to looking annoyed and put off like before, he only seemed to look disappointed when Kana pulled away from him yet again; the sight sent a pang of guilt through her chest. "Why do insist on refusing to sleep?" Itachi's voice was low as he spoke, probably to avoid waking their companion, "It can't be just uneasiness from being away from home, still, can it?"

When they had been on a team together, Kana had no qualms about sleeping out on missions. There had always been a part of her that completely and absolutely trusted Itachi and Guy to keep the group safe, or at least warn them of impending danger should it ever arrive. When they had been separated to different Anbu squads, she had to learn to trust others to do the same – no easy feat on her part, but one that had been successful.

However, now that they were out on their own there was something that kept her too on edge to fully allow herself to relax. Rigid muscles had begun to knot up under the constant stress of being tensed, and there was a constant throbbing in the center of Kana's skull from the level of exhaustion she felt. Despite the discomfort, there was no way she could bring herself to just stretch out in her bed roll and submit to the ever-present call of black unconsciousness.

"You know we would never allow anything happen to you," Itachi murmured after a few long moments of silence, "Kisame, I know, comes off aggressive, but he isn't very different from you and I. He is a trustworthy ally. You're safe with us."

It wasn't just a matter of her safety, though – Kana could easily be woken from the light slumber shinobi were trained to put themselves in, with one ear actively paying attention to the sounds around them. The fact of the matter was, she just wanted to be _home_ and the thought of not being able to for the rest of her life was something that had been slowly poisoning her heart.

With her lip hooked under a sharp canine, Kana drew her knees up to her chest as if to shield herself from the longing that had begun to stab at her chest like an icy blade. "How… How can you deal with this?" she whispered.

For a few long minutes Kana wondered if he had even heard her, or if her words had been lost behind the masks she wore. It wasn't until she cleared her throat to force herself to speak louder that Itachi finally responded.

"I remind myself of everything that is worth protecting," he reached up to play with one of the few braids in her black ponytail as he spoke, "The ninja academy, the seasonal festivals, the Will of Fire that each and every one of our comrades carry within them… When the loneliness and the despair from being away from home begin to weigh down on me, I remind myself of why I became a shinobi - of everything that I hold dear."

 _"Come on, we're going to be late!" Tenten's warm brown eyes almost glittered with excitement as she ushered Kana down the street, who felt seven million shades of uncomfortable and exposed._

 _She tugged the lacy hem of the dress down for the umpteenth time in the last hour, marveling at how the fabric had yet to tear beneath her frustrated movements. Somehow, the genin had convinced Kana to don a lavender colored skater dress that fell mid-thigh, where it was lined with a green lace that was very similar to her eye color – hardly a coincidence, she figured. The dress was considerably longer than the shorts Kana normally wore, which cut off just below her butt, but there was something weirdly exposing about wearing something so… Open._

 _Despite being the one insisting that Kana wear something other than pants, Tenten had donned a yellow Chinese-style shirt and black capris, with her long hair uncharacteristically cascading over her shoulders and blowing in the gentle breeze._

 _Kana couldn't help but smile at the sight; the genin was remarkably gorgeous even at only twelve._

 _"Heeeyyy! Tenten! Kana!" Lee's voice rang through the busy street to get their attention, waving one arm as if his high-pitched voice wasn't enough to direct them. When they had caught up with the group, he handed them both two sticks of dango; Tenten was handed green balls of matcha dango while the skewers given to Kana were covered in what looked like a sesame glaze._

 _She looked up to giving Neji a knowing and appreciative smile, who returned it with a pleased expression. It seemed that even his lack of patience with Lee couldn't spoil the good mood set by the beautiful day, and Kana couldn't help but lean over to place a quick kiss on his cheek when the others weren't looking as they walked down the sidewalk. Neji made a small noise of disapproval in the back of his throat as he wiped away the salty glaze that had transferred onto his face, but his smile widened nonetheless._

 _It wasn't long until they encountered Guy and Kakashi, who were accompanied by Asuma, Iruka and Kurenai. A few months back Tenten had made a comment about how seeing the teachers in normal street clothes was akin to, "Seeing a turtle walk on its hind legs," – why she had chose a turtle over the traditional dog for the saying was beyond her – but Kana couldn't help but appreciate the casual nature of their meeting. Even Kakashi had abandoned his shinobi uniform for a much more practical t-shirt and jeans, most likely due to the request of the chunin that was practically hanging off of him; she smiled at how his silver bangs flopped over his forehead and left eye._

 _"Well, well, well, look who_ actually _showed up," a familiar voice drawled just before lightly tanned fingers plucked a dango off of her skewer, "I didn't even know you owned a dress, lady."_

 _Kana frowned as Genma peered over her shoulder with his trademark smirk, "I didn't until yesterday."_

 _"Awww, you bought a dress just for lil' ole_ me _?" he teased before softening his smirk into a content smile, "You look nice in colors - should wear them more often."_

 _With Neji's hand placed on the small of her back in a familiar and protective gesture, she turned to see Hayate and Yugao walking up, munching happily on street food. A light blush crossed her cheeks at the sight of Raido next to them, whose eyes lingered just a little longer than they probably should have, and felt a small flutter in her stomach. They both looked away quickly when their gazes met, muttering polite greetings while hoping no one suddenly developed telepathic powers and figured out that the reason Kana was walking with a slight limp, was because of scarred tokujo taking her supposed virginity the night before._

 _When she noticed that a certain pair of pet chunin were missing, Kana furrowed her eyebrows, "Where are Kotetsu and Izumo? Wasn't it_ their _idea to have a meetup?"_

 _In fact, literally the only reason she was here was because it had been Izumo that said she could bring along her friends so that she would be more comfortable during the outing. Granted, he probably wasn't expecting a group of genin, jonin-sensei and the romantic partners of said jonin-sensei, but... Kana couldn't invite Kakashi without Iruka throwing a fit, who invited Kurenai, who wouldn't attend without Asuma. Thankfully, though, Iruka and Kurenai were good friends with the magpies._

 _Genma shrugged, but had a knowing glint in his eye. "They needed some extra time getting ready," he said casually before popping the stolen dango into his mouth._

 _Eventually the group made their way to one of Konoha's larger parks, which was lined with blooming sakura trees that scattered petals over the clearing. Lee and Tenten were prattling off to each other about different combat techniques, with Guy and Asuma jumping in every now and then to add their two cents, while the rest of the group was locked in a casual conversation that frequently jumped to different light topics._

 _Kana couldn't help but smile to herself at the situation as she slipped the last of the sesame dango off of the skewer and into her mouth, bringing one finger up to her mouth to lick off the glaze that had dripped onto her hand. Kotetsu caught the sight and wiggled his eyebrows with a smirk, only to be met by a rather vicious hail of slaps from his best friend, who gave an amused but apologetic smile from across the circle that the group was seated in. Not like Kana minded, really, considering she was becoming more and more comfortable around the chunin and their friends. Even though she wasn't exactly close with the group, she was glad she accepted the invitation that had been extended to her._

 _A gentle breeze rolled through the clearing and dozens of pink and white petals fluttered through the air like small butterflies, many of them settling into the group's hair, which earned a few laughs as Kakashi tried to pluck them out of his bushy silver locks, only to somehow push them further in. He eventually blushed and gave Iruka a sheepish look, who only smiled while burrowing his tan fingers into his lover's hair._

 _"Leave them," Neji tugged Kana's hands away from the braid she had been pulling petals out of before tucking some of them between the woven locks, "The senbon guy is right, you look lovely with colors," he said softly, a fond smile dancing over his lips._

 _At first she wanted to protest, because she was still somewhat uncomfortable from having to wear something as girly as a dress – which was a victory in itself, considering Tenten tried to attack her with makeup – but seeing Neji with the rare glow of genuine happiness on his face was such a rarity anymore that Kana couldn't bring herself to deny him anything. Her hands fell into her lap obediently so he could work._

 _When the petals had been woven into the silver locks to his liking, Neji sat back to admire his handiwork before looking back at the group as a silent observer, but not before slipping his hand into hers and interlocking their fingers._

The memory of the cherry blossom festival only sent another sharp pang of longing through Kana's chest, and she buried her masked face into her knees. "You were always so much stronger than I was," she whispered.

"I promise it will get easier," was Itachi's response, "Your body is still having trouble replenishing its chakra levels – you _need_ to get some rest."

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. Chakra was best restored through rest and nourishment, both of which Kana had been denying her body over the handful of weeks she had been away from home. Her body ached, her head throbbed and there was the constant threat of her body forcing itself into unconsciousness from both physical and mental exhaustion. Despite all of that Kana knew there was no way she could just fall asleep, given the aforementioned reasons, so she turned her head enough so that Itachi knew that she was looking at him.

"Can you just… Can you do it for me?" she asked feebly, avoiding the pearly black eyes that gazed down at her sadly.

He brought his hand to the back of Kana's neck to place his thumb and forefinger at the base of her skull, "Whenever you're ready."

With a deep breath, she nodded just before the world went black.

* * *

Kana chewed unhappily on her soba, hardly paying attention to the near-boiling broth that seared her lips and the insides of her mouth. Why the fuck Pain had assigned Kisame and Itachi to a bounty that was literally across the continent, only to bring it back across the continent again to fucking Zangei's bounty collection establishment, for only fifteen million ryo was not only something that was baffling, but it was almost infuriating. The daimyo's kid had been nothing but a pain in their necks the entire goddamn journey, and it had taken both Kisame and her more than an impressive amount of willpower to not slit his throat halfway through their trek.

Now, they were back on their merry way to another bounty in the northernmost part of the fucking Land of _Earth_.

 _'At least we're staying in an inn with room service,'_ she thought to herself grumpily. Even for someone that loved the outdoors and exercise, Kana was sick and tired of camping out in the woods and and caves; it wasn't as if they could just walk up to a motel with an unconscious political figure and rent a room.

It didn't help that every time they entered their home countries, Anbu was on their tail faster than they could blink. Kana had thought that Leaf Anbu were fast and persistent, but the Mist's hunter-nin moved faster than lightning itself; there had been multiple instances where they would have been caught if it hadn't been for Kana's ability to confuse the Kiri shinobi with her Ishikigan long enough for Itachi to throw her marked kunai as far as possible. Even then, it was rough to have to teleport with multiple people.

Even Kisame was beginning to look as if he were being run ragged, and Kana had almost been certain that the man _never_ tired. Ever. There were bags under his usually bright eyes and his mouth seemed to have begun to curve down into a permanent discontented frown; his entire body just looked tense and uncomfortable to live in.

Itachi's health wasn't faring any better, really. They had been running around so much that Kana had to begin lessening the doses of medicine she gave him in an attempt at making it go longer, but she was still running low as his health began to deteriorate again. This had been the only real chance the trio had been given to get some sort of rest so he was sprawled across the bed where he had passed out after finishing his lunch, slumbering quietly beneath the two blankets Kisame had draped over him while Kana removed his shoes. Looking back on it, the scene had almost been like they were two parents putting their child to sleep.

A dry smile crossed her lips as she sucked up the last of her noodles, but it was short-lived as she focused on the blue-skinned man before her; he really _did_ look like hell.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked while collecting the now-empty dishes to set them back on the tray they had been brought on.

Kisame sighed heavily and leaned back against the foot of the second bed, rubbing at his face with one of his massive hands as he did so, "Been a rough couple of weeks, is all."

While she certainly did agree with him, things had been like this since Kana had unofficially joined the Akatsuki. "Isn't it always like this, though?"

"Nah, I think Pain's preparing for something - it's been years since he's given us back-to-back assignments like this," he said in a low voice as he stretched, "I feel like I've aged ten years."

The kunoichi stood up, tray in hand, and walked over to the door to set them just in the hall before walking back to the bed and patting the duvet, "Here, lay down." When Kisame eyebrows furrowed, eyes darting over to Itachi's sleeping form, she narrowed her uncovered eyes and frowned behind her cloth mask, "Don't be weird. I'm just gonna help you relax." Kana had half of a mind to stab him in the dick when his look of confusion turned into his typical wolfish grin, painfully aware of how she had set herself up for some dirty joke of sorts. Years of hanging around Genma and Kakashi had apparently done nothing to teach her to watch her mouth around men that smiled just a little too much...

She didn't even hear the joke Kisame made as he obediently draped his large figure over the too-small double, his Akatsuki cloak having been discarded. The reminder of her friends caused a wave of sadness to wash over Kana, and it wasn't until the man made a curious hum and peered over his shoulder that she snapped out of her daze. Mumbling an apology, she sat down on the bed next to him and placed a hand on the back of his arm.

The gentle flow of normal healing chakra being worked into Kisame's tight muscles was met with an appreciative groan. As her hand smoothed over the curve of his shoulder, over the the black markings that turned into gills when he merged with Samehada, he sagged into the bed with a heavy, exhausted sigh; Kana couldn't help but feel the edges of her lips tug upwards into a small smile.

 _"He isn't very different from you and I. He is a trustworthy ally."_

Pale, tattooed fingers rose to hook under the black mask that kept her face constantly covered, eyes flitting over to the window and door to make sure that the trio was securely hidden from the rest of the world. Paranoia was a real bitch, she found out, and Kana finally understood why Kakashi had always been so insistent on keeping his on, even when around comrades. She had only ever worn it when she was out on missions, and only began to regularly keep her face covered after joining Root as a sort of preparation for when she left the Leaf, but there was still a small panicking feeling that clambered its way up her throat as Kana very, very, slowly tugged her mask down so that it bunched around her neck.

Cool air rushed to meet her cheeks, which only amplified her paranoia, and she had to focus on keeping her hand steady as the healing energy worked at a particularly tight bundle of knots in Kisame's shoulder. Why Kana had made the decision to pull her mask down was beyond her - it had really just been a whim, if nothing else. Maybe it was a way for her to challenge herself. Maybe it was to challenge whatever trust she held in the swordsman that was sighing encouragingly beneath her hand. Whatever her reason was, it now felt stupid. What if someone ambushed them, or just walked in, or-

"Relax, little girl," Kisame murmured into the arm that was pillowing his face, "I won't look unless you want me to."

The hand that was now hovering over the back of his neck froze. It made sense that a shinobi of his caliber would have heard the slight rustling of fabric so close to him, but for some reason Kana felt as if she had been caught stealing, or something. A warm feeling in her cheeks told her that she was blushing in embarrassment, and she decided to just focus on something else.

That something else apparently was a song. Kana began to hum the first song that came to mind while her hand glided beyond the black fabric of his turtleneck, smoothing over the blue flesh of Kisame's exposed shoulder. It was warmer than she had anticipated, though, when she thought about it, it wasn't as if she had imagined the way his skin would feel. Still, if Kana had been made to wonder at some point, she probably would have expected him to feel cold and clammy, and maybe a little rough. Like a shark.

Chapped lips stretched into a grin at the thought; she was real fucking lame.

"Mm... That sounds nice."

Kisame's praise snapped her out of the fantasy of him swimming around as a baby fish, and her fingers flexed ever so slightly as the feeling of being caught red-handed rose up again, "Uh, what?"

A lone white eye cracked open to peer up at the wall, obviously resisting the urge to look up at her, "That song. It got a name?" his voice was gruff, and she realized that he was beginning to fall asleep.

She looked down to where her fingers were kneading away at his lower back, "Yeah. The Slightly Chipped Full Moon. I don't remember where I heard it - I think my mother sang it to me or something," she answered softly, careful to not wake their companion.

"How'd she die?"

His question caught Kana completely off guard, and if she didn't have sage-like chakra control then she probably would have accidentally cut his flesh open or burned the hell out of it in surprise. Instead the kunoichi cut off the green glow and gaped down at him in shock. Kisame almost looked guilty when he saw her response, but only shrugged casually and slid his eyes shut. "Your village was attacked by the Nine Tails when you and Itachi were just kids, right? If you don't remember where you heard it, then either your parents died before you got to know them or you heard it in passing," he explained as if he were sharing something as simple mochi ice cream recipe.

No matter how much Itachi trusted him, Kana didn't have much interest in explaining how her parents died to someone she hardly knew. She removed her hand from his tricep, which suddenly felt searing and made her skin crawl, and pulled her mask up, "Do you feel better? I don't want you to pull a muscle on the field."

Kisame adjusted himself into what she assumed was a more comfortable position, looking somewhat put off by her refusal, "Yeah," he answered gruffly.

"Then I'm going out to train for a bit. I'll bring by dinner on my way back. And probably some cough syrup."

He didn't answer, and the room was silent as Kana shut the door behind her with a soft ' _click_.'

* * *

Among the many number of things she truly missed about Konoha, Kana missed having access to a training field.

Itachi's and Raido's words still loomed over her thoughts even as she finished her thousandth pushup on the roof of the inn they were staying at. She had decided to work out during her watch in an attempt to direct her mind in some other direction, but it seemed that no matter how hard Kana tried she couldn't get herself to think about anything else. Robotic exercises like this weren't enough mental stimulation – she needed to spar. Kana needed to be a shinobi and beat the shit out of someone that was fighting back just as hard.

Sure, they had been in fights over the last couple of months, but they weren't even remotely challenging – they mostly just included the bodyguards of whatever sap was being assassinated or captured to collect a bounty, none of which were more than just shitty rogue-nin with subpar skills. No, she needed a legitimate challenge. She needed something that posed some sort of threat, and required all of her attention.

Kana activated her Kurogan to scan their surroundings before setting her attention on the flock of birds gathered in a tree about fifty meters away. Considering Neji took some sort of bizarre pleasure out of counting birds when he was training, and how Itachi continued to tease her about her poor bukijutsu, she reached into the pouch on the back of her hip and began counting. A couple of the pigeons cooed and fluttered about, pushing a few out of the way to reposition themselves, and Kana swore when she lost count.

Twelve shuriken cut through the still night air in the direction of the tree, nine of them connecting with their intended targets and the other three hitting branches. Kana rolled her eyes with an angry sigh – not only did she miss three of the pigeons, but now she had to go climb the fucking tree and get her throwing stars back. Why had she considered this to be a good idea was beyond her.

Hissing various swear words under her breath, she looked down at where one of the shuriken had cut through her glove and sliced the side of her finger open. Blood dribbled out of the wound, which was relatively deep, and Kana could only angrily tear the glove away to throw it onto the roof. The anxiety that had been building up over the last month or so was morphing into a searing rage, and Kana had to bite back the shout that was tearing its way up her throat.

She was so angry at the situation that the kunoichi, who was basically a top-tier sensor, didn't notice Kisame's approach until he was standing by her side with a curious expression. Startled, Kana reactively jumped back and grabbed the handle of her katana.

The shark man only folded his arms over his broad chest and grinned impishly, "It isn't like you to be caught off guard," he purred, clearly enjoying the reaction he had instilled.

"What do you want?" Kana released her sword before smearing the blood over her jumpsuit, "You should be sleeping."

Kisame shrugged, "It's not like I can sleep with you jumping around and swearing up a storm," he said casually, sitting down on the highest point of the roof and placing Samehada next to him.

Shifting her weight to her other foot, Kana couldn't help but feel her anxiety and anger to merge in a boiling mess now that her alone time had been ruined by the white-eyed man peering up at her. She scowled as if he could see it and walked over to pick up her Akatsuki cloak, but Kisame snatched it up just as her fingers grazed the fabric.

"Don't _fuck_ with me right now," she hissed, reaching for the cloak again. A low growl escaped her clenched teeth when it was yanked out of her reach again, "Kisame, seriously, quit being a fucking _prick_!"

There was the faint sound of cloth stretching as Kisame's other hand grabbed a fistful of jumpsuit as his grin widened. To her horror, the kunoichi realized that he had been using her cloak as bait to get in close enough so that he could get a hold on her, and Kana had been so lost in her frustration that she allowed it to happen. It didn't stop her from swinging her elbow back to drive it directly into his cheekbone, though, and she made sure to grip his wrist with her other hand, digging blunt nails into his flesh to force him to release her.

He released what sounded like an excited growl, and his white eyes obtained a mischievous glint just before Kisame picked Kana up and threw her off of the roof with one hand. She slid her katana out of its sheath as she caught herself on the roof of another building, using the momentum to swing up and around to stand on the corner, "What the fuck is your _problem_?!"

Kisame didn't answer and, instead, lunged at her with her cloak still in the hand that wasn't holding Samehada, his sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight with his smile.

Kana activated her Ishikigan and locked eyes on the large man just before creating two Shadow Clones; the first split off to the right to make it seem as if they were flanking him while the other jumped into the air.

Kisame only saw the one on the right, though, because that was the only one she _wanted_ him to see. He twisted his body and raised his sword to swing it around and block both of their attacks, but the clone in the air was on top of him too fast for Kisame to perform any sort of counterattack.

Lunging to the side to narrowly avoid being sliced in two, he could only continue reeling backwards as Kana created two more clones that rushed at him, making sure she stayed out of his sight by hiding behind the fourth clone and erasing herself from Kisame's mind. Applying enough chakra to her legs to jump back up to the rooftops, she waited until the four clones forced the man to jump up out of range before propelling herself forward fast enough for him to only see the afterimage of Kana crouching on the gutter.

She spun her katana once and held it back for just a second before raising it up in a vertical strike that split Kisame from hip to shoulder; Kana watched as the chunk of his body detached from the rest of him and fell to the ground with a satisfied smirk. In a final move she swung her leg around to connect her strapped boot with his clavicle and slam Kisame into the ground hard enough for the ground to cave in around his body.

Dropping back down, Kana dispelled her clones and leaned over the heaving figure that was covered in blood and dirt at her feet; she yanked the Akatsuki cloak out of his now-loose grip. "Quit dicking around and go back to bed," she hissed, watching his wounds heal as the dust settled.

Mirth was replaced by irritation at her words, "You told me your kenjutsu was only average," Kisame looked down at the ribs that were regrowing, "That sure as hell isn't just average swordsmanship, and that isn't just an average sword."

 _"Gen, you're late!" Izumo scolded with a frown as the older tokujo entered the living room, shrugging his flak jacket off of his broad shoulders._

 _He shrugged with a sigh, "No kidding. Can you believe they made me work the mission room today?" he complained while untying his forehead protector, "I didn't even have time to put on my ugly Christmas sweater. I had it all picked out and everything." Genma pouted as he spoke, looking almost dejected over the situation.  
_

 _Kotetsu scooted over on the sofa to make room for their friend and handed him a well-deserved beer before looping an arm around Izumo's shoulders, "He's just fussy 'cause Kana made us wait until you got here before we could eat and open presents."_

 _"We couldn't just start without him!" Kana cut in a little too loudly as she set down her third empty glass of apple pie moonshine. Her exclamation caused the chunin to chuckle, knowing that it was Izumo's magical concoction that caused the jonin's flushed cheeks and slightly raised voice, but Genma only smiled warmly and reached down to where she was sitting._

 _"Well I appreciate it," he wrapped an arm around her slender shoulders and hugged Kana tightly, "Merry Christmas, lady."_

 _Raido, who had also expressed displeasure over waiting, ran a hand through his spiky hair, "Food's already cold, so how about we open up these presents and then we can heat up dinner?" he asked before taking a swig of his own moonshine._

 _"Presents!" Kana rushed over to the ornately decorated tree so she could bring the chunin two specially-marked boxes, setting them in their laps with an excited smile. She had never bought presents for anyone other than her childhood friends, and her stomach fluttered in a nervous excitement when they both chuckled in unison while pulling at the wrapping._

 _Raido handed Genma his gift, "You have no idea how hard it was for me to keep Kana from peeking," he said in a humored tone before taking a small box from his named lover, who was frowning at him, "Next year, we're keeping them at your place."_

 _A small slap drew their attention back to Izumo, who had his hand covering half of his face in a vain attempt at hiding the blush that spread over his cheeks and down his neck. Curious, Kotetsu and Genma both looked away from the presents they were unwrapping to peer into the open box in his lap; a few second passed before they broke out into a fit of roaring laughter that only intensified the chunin's blush._

 _"D-Did you…" Kotetsu somehow managed to force words out through his laughter, "Kanaohmygod… You really…"_

 _Genma wrapped an arm around his waist and doubled over, "I didn't th-think you were_ serious _!" he guffawed, slapping his other hand on the arm of the couch._

 _Silver eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "It's just a book…" Her response only caused the two men to laugh harder, and it occurred to Kana that she had wrapped Izumo's book on utilizing water releases in combination with bukijutsu in a blue wrapping paper, but the paper in his lap was red…_

 _She blushed hotly and buried her face in Raido's shoulder with a squeak, who had figured out the situation by that point and joined in on the laughter, "That… That was for Tetsu…" Kana mumbled into the sleeve of his Christmas sweater._

 _By this point Izumo had started chuckling at the situation and carefully placed the vibrator back in the box with its other contents, "That explains the syrup-flavored lube…" Kotetsu shrieked in response and collapsed onto the wood flooring in a cackling pile of limbs and wrapping paper, which earned him a kick in the flank from his flushed lover._

 _Tears were streaming from his almond-shaped eyes as he crawled over to Kana, having relaxed somewhat, to pull her into a hug. "Y-you're my fave-orite jonin… In… The whole wide world," he snickered, "I'll be sure to put those to good use! His dick will smell like syrup for a month!"_

 _"Ko!" Izumo looked as if he was going to die of embarrassment and crumpled up some of the wrapping paper to throw at Kotetsu, who tugged Kana with him as he ducked out of the way and caught it in a loose fist. The chunin looked over at the book sitting on the table and his eyes lit up as he read the title, "This is actually really cool, thank you!" he said happily, his blush receding as he flipped through the pages._

 _Having calmed himself down to some light chuckling, Genma finished pulling apart the green wrapping paper and opened the dark wooden box. "Oh, shit," he mumbled as he delicately lifted one of the razor-sharp niobium senbon and replaced the one in his mouth._

 _"I remembered you pointed them out but complained that they were too expensive to buy in bulk," Raido explained while pulling the top off of his box, "Figured I'd get you a set to get you started."_

 _Genma clicked the senbon between his teeth with a wide smile, "They're perfect. Thanks, man!"_

 _Kotetsu reached over for the long, skinny box that had been propped up against the wall behind the Christmas tree and dragged it out so that he could find the label. When he found none, he frowned and looked over to the tokujo that was seated on the floor with them, "Who am I handing this to?"_

 _Looking up from the cheek he was nuzzling after seeing the assortment of rings Kana had gotten him, Raido hummed and pressed a kiss into her temple, "I must've forgotten to put a sticker on it. That's Kana's."_

 _For some reason it hadn't occurred to her that she would actually be_ receiving _any gifts, having been entirely focused on watching the others open theirs, and Kana just stared stupidly at the box as it was placed into her lap. It was a few feet long but only maybe six or seven inches wide, and when it shifted as she moved there was some sort of heavy sound of something sliding around. Raido and Izumo were both pretty damn good at gift wrapping, and Kana almost felt bad as a finger slipped under one of the ends where the paper was folded into a tab and taped down._

 _"Lady, we're gonna be throwing out the paper anyways so quit trying to save it," Genma drawled amusedly as he brought his beer bottle to his lips._

 _Kana frowned but tore at the paper anyways, pulling at the chiffon ribbon with her other hand with a dissatisfied hum; the wrapping really did look nice._

 _At first she could only dumbly gaze at the katana perfectly nestled in purple tissue paper. The tan hilt was tightly wrapped in a worn black fabric that Kana immediately recognized as the same cloth that she knew many kenjutsu specialists in her platoon preferred on their custom swords, because of how great the traction was no matter how sweaty your hands became. The guard was square and red, and the end of the hilt was wrapped in a white cloth._

 _When she lifted it from the box, the thin black blade glinted a little in the warm lighting._

 _"Now you can stop undressing Kokuto with your eyes," Raido smiled while closing the box of rings, "Every time you clean my sword I feel like it's being molested."_

 _It was made of the same metal as Kokuto, she realized, and Kana carefully bobbed it up and down to test its weight – the katana felt as if it were made of air, but it was still perfectly balanced in every way. As she focused on how the grip felt, though, she almost dropped it in shock and had to use a vast amount of self control to make sure it was gingerly slid back into its sheath and set into its bed of tissue paper._

 _Her bangs were changing color rapidly on the edges of her vision as she gaped at Raido, "This… This is…"_

 _Genma set his bottle down on the coaster his friend insisted on using, next to his box of senbon, and pushed his own bangs out of his face, "Yeah. Hayate left me his sword in his will, so when Rai started talking about making you a custom sword to replace your standard-issued one…" he shrugged and smiled sadly, "Thought it would be an insult to his memory to just have it sitting in the corner of my room, you know?"_

 _Suddenly afraid to touch the sword for fear of ruining it, Kana delicately traced the blade's handle with the tip of her finger._

 _"Whoa, that's really Hayate's?" Izumo asked in a soft voice, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Kotetsu remained silent for the first time in hours and just rest his head on his lover's knee while watching the others._

 _Kana's voice was barely louder than a whisper as she spoke, "I… It's fantastic, it_ really _is…" swirling eyes flitted between each man in the room, "But… This… It feels wrong… I mean, I didn't really know Hayate. I only knew him as your friend… And someone I trained with…"_

 _Genma's gaze warmed and Raido turned his body so that he could cup her jaw in his hands, "I know you regret not having become closer with him, but he was actually pretty damn fond of you," he explained, pausing long enough for the lovers to seal their lips together in a chaste kiss, "He was the one that kept trying to get me to invite you out when the Hokage's magpies were busy."_

 _"You're a good swordsman, and you two would have been fantastic friends. He would have wanted this," Raido finished before sneaking in another tender kiss._

 _"If anything," Genma added, "Think of it as a gift from all three of us."_

 _Tears spilled over her eyes and Raido smiled warmly as he pushed white bangs away from her face before leaning in for another kiss, "Merry Christmas, kitten."_

Kana leered down angrily at the shark man that was lying at her feet. She shook the blade enough to remove some of the blood so cleaning it wouldn't be as messy later, "Its name is Kioku. I lied about a few things, just like I know you've lied to me."

Kisame's eyes narrowed, "I was right about one thing, though – you're dangerous."

"Why did you attack me?" she asked in a low voice that carried her threatening tone.

The shark man's grin returned, "I was bored."

The anger and frustration that had been building since the incident in the forest just a couple of weeks ago reached a peak that cast a red haze over Kana's vision. Her hand was nothing more than a blur as she reached down to grab Kisame by the throat and slam him back into the small crater, feeling her nails break his skin and his windpipe collapse under the pressure; a pained grunt somehow manage to squeeze its way up Kisame's crushed throat. His hands were pulled above his head less than a second before Koiku drove through them and pinned them to the ground.

In the back of her mind she knew that she wouldn't really be able to kill him as long as Samehada was nearby but, in reality, Kana just didn't give a fuck. She wasn't trying to kill him as she sank chakra claws into his blue flesh to curl around his sternum. It wasn't her intention to end his life as she yanked it away from his ribs and drove it into his abdominal artery. Murder didn't cross the kunoichi's mind when her demon arm nearly cut him into two pieces, severing the intestines that spilled out from his torn belly.

No, Kana just wanted to see him _hurting_. She wanted to see him feel just as much pain and misery that had been gnawing viciously at her heart over the last year.

She wanted that fucking cocky smile wiped off of his stupid arrogant face as her bloody fist crashed through healing ribs to grip his erratically beating heart and crush it in her fist.

Kisame chuckled and Kana knew that he knew what she was doing. She pulled the squished, deflated muscle out of his chest and slapped it across his laughing mouth with a strangled cry. His cheek caved in under her fist with an audible crack and burrowed into his sinuses, but it only seemed to fuel Kisame's amusement. Even when his lungs were pummeled into a chunky paste, partially melted by chakra, his wheezed gasps were still so clearly forming strained chuckles.

Every injury inflicted onto the blue man immediately began to heal itself, and Kana was soon too breathless and worn out to keep up the onslaught. Knocking her Anbu mask away and dragging her cloth one down to her collar so she could breathe, the kunoichi fell to the side and into the pool of blood and shredded organs that surrounded the two shinobi. She released the chakra that reinforced Kioku so Kisame could finally pull his hands up to move.

The pair laid on the bloody ground wordlessly; the only sounds were their pants and the wet, sickening sound of the Mist-nin's body repairing itself. A breeze rolled through the empty street and Kana shivered.

After many long minutes Kisame slid his hands up the length of the thin black blade that kept his hands pinned, pushing up against the hilt and pulling it out of the rocky ground. "You're real messed up, little girl," he purred, pulling his hands off of the katana. She only hummed in a futile attempt at growling and snatched Kioku away from his hands. Kisame's lips stretched into another smile in response, "It's almost feline, the way you move and sound," he said while rising to his feet, "There's something grotesquely beautiful about the way you fight. Frenzied, but lithe, and graceful."

Kana grunted but made no move to follow his example by standing up. She wasn't willing to admit it, but the kunoichi had overdone it; her body ached from the mild chakra depletion and physical exertion it had been put through. As much as she wanted to be angry over how Kisame acted as if that was just some performance for him to enjoy, there was no way in hell Kana would be able to muster up any feeling other than exhaustion.

"You made a real mess, you know," he continued with that stupid shit-eating grin plastered on his face, "I'm gonna have to get a new cloak after this, and the villagers are going to throw a fit over this bloodbath..."

Some of the amusement that glittered in his beady white eyes faltered when she remained silent, and he reached out to bump her shoulder, "You alright?"

With a huff, Kana used the Body Blow technique to send the still-injured man stumbling away. The response must have confirmed whatever suspicion about her well being he had, because Kisame hooked Samehada onto his holster with a frown, "I suppose now that you've thrown your tantrum you're gonna pout. It's whatever you want, little cat, but-"

"Don't call me that," she hissed.

He shrugged, "Whatever. You can't just lay in the street like that, but you can't move, can you?"

Through some inhumane display of willpower, Kana somehow managed to push herself up from the pool of blood with a spiteful glare. Her fingers trembled around Kioku's hilt and her legs quivered beneath her weight, but she was able to force screaming muscles to work through the discomfort and lurching towards the inn. As capable as she was of moving, though, Kana couldn't do much when a large blue hand gripped her shoulder to pull her to a stop. The force sent her staggering backwards and the kunoichi fell into Kisame's outstretched arms with a swear.

"If Itachi sees you like that he'll put me in the Tsukiyomi for a week," he chuckled, "Can you use a suiton to rinse off?"

Swirling eyes peered down at her body - Kana looked like a murder victim with all of the blood and mushy tissue that covered her front and hands. The scowl turned into a dissatisfied frown at the predicament, knowing full well that Itachi really would have a heart attack at her appearance. "N-no... The chakra from my bloodline trait only allows for yin and yang releases," she murmured slowly, still too uncomfortable to speak.

There was a quick movement from Kisame before the kunoichi felt lukewarm water splash over her head. A startled gasp escaped her lips, but she was too tired to give much more of a reaction as the man literally showered her off. Gross. As much as the thought of him basically spitting water onto her body was, Kana couldn't help but admire his thoroughness as the last of the gore dripped onto the ground with a wet slap.

With Kisame supporting her by the shoulders the pair walked back to the inn, thankful for the emptiness of the streets that came with the late hour. Kana somehow managed to find the presence of mind and determination to clean Kioku thoroughly before sheathing it and setting it in the corner with the rest of her gear. Itachi didn't stir as the pair peeled out of their drenched - and shredded, in Kisame's case - clothing to wearily towel off and slip into the only spare set of clothes they owned.

She didn't even think twice about how the shark man helped her to the only other bed, as there were only two beds due to their watch rotation, and slipped under the covers to curl around her small frame. All Kana knew was that she was still chilled from being wet in the dead of winter, and Kisame's body was like a furnace that enveloped her body with a welcomed warmth. A content sigh passed through her parted lips when strong arms wrapped around her waist to press her against that delicious, comforting heat. She smiled weakly at Itachi, who had cracked an eye open to peer curiously at her, just before consciousness escaped her.

For the first time in months, Kana spent the night in a relaxed, dreamless sleep.

* * *

 **Note** : Fixed that typo. Lol. Waffling. That's what happens when you're writing a story while hungry, while watching the Capcom Cup 2015. Which, by the way, holy crap Kazunoko really played like a God. And not, like, a deity. I mean like one of the Five Gods of Street Fighter lol. Google it if you're confused.

Anyways, I've been having like some really harsh Christmas feels so keep an eye out for a Christmas extra chapter on Growing Up. It's gonna be cute and shit. Not like this story, where for some reason I just get a kick out of keeping Kana miserable. *shrug* What can ya do?


	4. Chapter 4

Warm. Kana was warm.

She smiled contently and snuggled back into the heavy blanket that was draped over her body. The blanket moved to curl around her head, massaging her scalp with a large and heavy hand.

Wait.

Her eyes snapped open.

Blankets don't move – blankets don't _breathe_.

Kana was being pinned down.

16 years of shinobi training kicked in and her arm snapped out to grab the kunai resting on the dresser. She picked up the weapon so that the blade was pointing down towards her forearm, swinging it around with as much force as her aching body could muster.

The person holding her down was faster, though, and grabbed Kana's wrist in an iron grip before she could impale him with the knife.

"It's just me, little bird."

The gruff voice in her ear was familiar, but she didn't release the kunai. Instead, they both remained stock-still in complete silence as her mind worked frantically to make sense of the situation. Kana's muscles were sore and ached - so tense that it seemed as if any addition of pressure would cause them to snap beneath her skin.

Glowing eyes drifted up to where her hand was still held in the air by a monstrously large blue hand; hers almost looked childlike in comparison.

 _'That's right… I was on watch and Kisame attacked me… And… We fell asleep?_ ' She looked at her arm, noticing how it was bare, and a fresh jolt of anxiety flashed through Kana's body like a bolt of lightning. She moved her leg experimentally and felt bare flesh rub against her own from where Kisame's leg had hooked around her own.

Fighting against the wave of worry and nausea that clambered up her throat, Kana tightened her grip on the kunai in a vain attempt at making herself feel anchored. "Why am I naked?" she whispered, voice cracking on the last word.

The arm that was still wrapped around her waist shifted just a hair, and the kunoichi could feel something being tugged. "You're not," said Kisame, who was now grinning against her ear, "You're just too used to wearing this bodysuit."

Oh, yeah. He was tugging the spandex suit, which properly clothed her torso from her butt all the way up to where the mask was still bunched around her collar; her legs and arms were bare because the jumpsuit was both legless and sleeveless. The kunai clattered to the floor as relief washed over Kana and she allowed her muscles to finally relax.

She practically melted into the bed with a sigh. Kisame chuckled but didn't release her wrist, instead choosing to use the hold he had on her to loop her arm around her midsection in a sort of double hug. The firm, but gentle, hold caused Kana to shut her eyes for a brief moment, before they flew open again.

"Why are… What are you… Bed, and things, and…?" The sudden change from relaxed, to alarmed, to relieved, to alarmed again had managed to melt Kana's brain and the best she could do was to just spew out broken, disjointed phrases. It didn't help that the mountainous, bloodthirsty, crass man that she had literally torn to pieces the night before was now… Spooning… Her…

Any attempts at squirming away were thwarted by the strong body that was wrapped around hers, and Kana quickly realized that what he had said that day, after their stop in the Grass tea shop, was right. Maybe if the situation had been different then she could best him, but, as things currently were, Kisame was able to completely overpower her without expending any visible effort.

A disgruntled hum came from the shark man when she experimentally released a smaller form of the Body Blow Technique; even if Kisame was capable of withstanding its effects by absorbing the chakra, her chakra seemed to still have a negative effect on him.

"After your little frenzy, we came back and went to sleep, that's all," he purred, clearly enjoying Kana's rising stress levels, "As attractive as you are, I'm certain that I would break you if we were to mate."

The kunoichi balked. _Mate_? What were they, dogs? She twisted her neck so that she could narrow her eyes at Kisame, "Get off of me. You're heavy."

His smirk widened to reveal two rows of white, razor-sharp teeth that were way too close to Kana's face for comfort, "No. You're soft, and I don't have to do anything until tomorrow so I think I'm just going to keep you in bed with me until-"

Kana's arm ripped out of his hold and jerked back, violently jamming it into Kisame's ribcage with an irritated grunt. With the second-long window that the surprise attack granted her, she pushed herself up, swiftly rolled over, and slammed her fist over his cheekbone.

"Go fuck yourself," she hissed, "I'm not your toy! Who the hell do you think you are?!" Kana scowled when a mischievous glint appeared in his white irises, "I've got shit to do! Pain needs me to get intel on Suna's security, and I need to leave, like, _today_."

Maybe it was because of the chakra depletion from their scuffle just hours before dawn, or maybe it was because of the dull pain in her still-taut muscles from her training, but Kisame somehow managed to move faster than Kana could react. He wrapped his arms around her upper arms, effectively pinning them to her sides while simultaneously rolling them over so that she was pressed into the mattress.

A surprised yelp was the most coherent thing Kana could get out in response. Not one to give up, though, she wriggled her arms out enough to grab hold of Kisame's biceps and use them as leverage so she could swing her legs around and crawl out from under him, climbing over the large man's body. The kunoichi gripped his wrists like he had done to her earlier to pin them over his head.

Blue skin writhed as Kisame's developed muscles twitched beneath her, and she couldn't help but let her eyes drop to a small cluster of white scars that peeked out from under the edge of his tank top. If he could heal himself with Samehada, why were there scars? Did he get them before he became a Swordsman of the Mist? They almost looked like the result of Kisame being unable to avoid a dozen senbon being thrown in his direction.

Kana was unable to resist the urge to release one of his arms to lightly trace the marred flesh but, in doing so, she gave the shark man enough of an opening to twist around underneath her and pin her arms back down to her sides, this time much harder than before. He rotated her body so that her back was pressed into his chest before rolling them back over.

As opposed to pressing her into the mattress like before, Kisame seemed to balance himself on his knees and braced himself on his forearms so that Kana's upper body only barely grazed the sheets. She wasn't sure if she liked it better this way or not, but it was nice to not have the oppressive weight of Kisame's body smushing the air out of her lungs this time.

No, not _nice_ , just… Less terrible.

She writhed as best as she could but Kana's body was so small in comparison to his massive frame that his arms were able to wrap around her two full times and keep her from even budging an inch. If she scratched the skin of her thigh hard enough she could probably draw blood but, even if she did, there was no way Kana could move her hands to swipe the blood over the tattoo on her forearm to summon Hanako.

Kisame's breath was warm on the back of her neck as he inhaled. Was he _smelling_ her?

The gravity of the situation slammed into Kana at the thought. Itachi wasn't at the inn, probably on an assignment, and she was being held down by one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. She couldn't move, she didn't have enough chakra to do anything other than make him uncomfortable as he absorbed it, Kisame was clad in only his sleeveless top and boxers, and she couldn't even form the hand seal to teleport away from him.

"I can feel your heart racing against my chest," he purred, trailing his smirking lips over Kana's shoulder, "Have I finally made you nervous, little bird?"

An angry panic began to settle in her chest at his words; he was playing her like a piece to a board game. "Am I a bird or a cat? Make up your goddamn mind," she spat while desperately trying to keep her voice sounding even, but angry.

Kisame chuckled, "Let's just say I did some _thinking_ while you were drooling all over the pillow."

Thinking about what animal she would be? What the fuck was up with him today? Kana dropped her weight from her knees in the hope that the sudden change would loosen his grip, but it was of no use; he had already been supporting the majority of her weight with his arms. If anything, the kunoichi only managed to make it easier for Kisame to flatten their bodies together.

"Yeah, well, cats and birds _eat_ fish so –"

"I really don't think you're in the position to start making threats, you know."

Even though his words should have sounded menacing, Kisame's tone carried an almost playful mischievousness; it was as if he was just trying to see how she'd react. She was reminded of how Itachi had been the one to vouch for his companion's trustworthiness, and knew that if he were like _that_ , then Itachi wouldn't have left her with Kisame like this. The thought eased some of the tension in her body, if only infinitesimally, and some of the panic trickled away.

No longer in fear of something atrocious happening, her mind went back to the small cluster of scars on his shoulder and Kana furrowed her eyebrows at the white pillow that stared back up at her.

"If you're going to make me lay here all day, at least answer something for me," she huffed, "Why don't you heal those scars on your back? You heal everything else."

Without skipping a beat, Kisame asked, "Why don't you heal yours?"

 _'Jeeze, that something that's been on your mind?_ ' she thought wryly. Still, it was a valid enough question – it was pretty rare for Kana to get hit on the field, even before she learned to teleport on command, but there had always been a specific reason she kept the scars that formed, despite having the ability to erase them with her white chakra.

"When I was little, my sensei told me that the scars a shinobi gets from battle stands as a testament to their strength," she explained as she finally lowered her head so that it rested on the pillow, "It's physical proof that they battled with an opponent capable of injuring them, but lived. I keep them, not only because they're a physical show of my strength, but because I feel like it would be an insult to my enemies as ninja."

Ah, that struck a nerve. The lips that had been almost caressing the exposed skin of her shoulder faltered in the smirk they formed just as Kisame's head stilled to hover over the curve. After a few long moments of near-deafening silence, he sighed.

"The first time a team of hunter-nin was sent to take me out, one of them landed a hit. I suppose you could say that it's a reminder of home," his voice was low as he spoke and had an unmistakable layer of longing underneath the surface.

Kana understood how he felt. The way he acted whenever they had to enter the Land of Waves and get near the Village Hidden in the Mist hadn't gone unnoticed; Kisame missed his home just as much as his Leaf companions did. She wriggled her shoulders just a little – not to be difficult, but as some attempt to display concern.

There was a small noise made in the back of his throat just before his lips parted and Kisame took the curve of her shoulder into his mouth.

All she could manage was an almost hoarse cry that was muffled by the pillow when razor-sharp teeth sank into her flesh, sending white hot pain shooting through her shoulder and arm. For a brief moment Kana considered making an attempt to struggle, but was afraid of either Kisame biting through the shoulder entirely, or his teeth being dragged through more flesh.

 _'Oh god – fuck –_ fuck _– that hurts.'_ Kana steadied her breathing before opening eyes she hadn't even realized had closed, turning her head on the pillow to try to see what the hell was happening.

The arms that had been wrapped around her body had tightened, pressing her back flush against his broad chest and waist, and his lips were sealed over her skin while Kisame breathed evenly through his nose. Dark blue brows knitted together as his teeth burrowed a little deeper into her skin, and the movement from his mouth caused for a tiny smear of blood to appear in its wake.

It was a bizarre spectacle, to say the least. For a few long minutes the only sounds in the room was the subtle wet sound of Kisame's sucking, and Kana's short gasps almost drowning out his too-calm breathing. Pain wasn't so much an issue anymore, considering she had suffered much worse, but the situation itself was so outré and bizarre that the kunoichi had been stunned into silence and submissiveness.

When the shock of what was happening passed and, in turn, her heart rate returned to something of a normal speed, Kisame moved the arm that had been holding her waist to bring his hand back up to her head, running his callused fingers through the loose bangs that framed her face. It was obvious that he didn't expect her to start fighting or struggling against him and she didn't know if that pissed her off or not. Instinctively, Kana tilted her head back with the movement with a sigh, then cursed herself silently when the sigh turned into a soft mewl.

In the back of her mind she wondered how they must look – a mountainous man with blue skin, gill-like tattoos and white eyes gnawing the shoulder of a woman not even half his size. It probably would appear as if he were trying to devour a child.

Just as the image crossed her mind, Kisame slowly pulled his face away and released the hold he had on Kana's upper body. With nothing to support her she sank into the sheets as if she were melting, only the slight trembling of her fingers betraying her calm demeanor. Looking back down at the abused shoulder she inwardly flinched. It looked like hell – blood was trickling out of each tiny puncture wound, the skin in the center of the teeth ring was bruised from the pressure of Kisame's sucking, and the skin circling the wound was beginning to swell.

It looked as if she had been mauled by a shark, to say the least.

Kana pushed against the bed, using the elbow not connected to her injured arm to prop herself up, and twisted her neck around to peer curiously at the man that was still hovering over her. The expression on his face was one she had never seen on him in the months they had spent together – it was thoughtful and intense, as if Kisame were mulling over the meaning of life while reminiscing on his days as a Mist-nin. There was an uncharacteristic calmness to it, as well, and Kana was almost reminded of how Genma looked at her the first time he asked to touch her face.

He wordlessly rolled off of her to rest by her side and snuck his arm back around Kana's chest, pulling her to rest on her uninjured side so that Kisame was pressed against her back again. This time it didn't feel as if he was trying to restrain her, but more like he was simply keeping her steady before leaning in again.

Kana braced herself for the feeling of inhumanly sharp teeth piercing her skin again though, this time, she was met with something warm and wet flicking over one shoulder blade. Before she could ask what he was doing, she felt Kisame's tongue on her skin for a second time, trailing upwards towards where he had bitten, and Kana realized that he was licking up the blood that trickled out from the injury.

It was nothing short of a macabre display of affection but she found the sensation to be oddly relaxing, and chose to lay back down with her head pillowed in Kisame's bicep. Swirling eyes slid shut under the ministrations as a content sigh was muffled by the arm still curled about her head. The man wasn't stroking her hair with the hand that was still nestled in her hair, but Kana decided that it felt nice just to feel herself being cradled the way that she was.

Even breathing warmed the trails of saliva that Kisame left in his wake as he brushed along each puncture wound with his lips; the kunoichi could feel him smearing the blood that oozed from the individual lacerations he had inflicted before running his tongue back over the bruised flesh to clean it up.

This definitely wasn't the most sanitary method to clean a wound, and it probably should have made Kana's med-nin side shriek in horror, but there was a part of her that reveled in the way the man's warm tongue flattened over her skin, tracing up to where the small rivulets of blood led him, before his lips slid shut over that particular wound, almost like he were placing open-mouthed kisses without actually doing so.

When the rear of her shoulder was taken care of to his liking Kisame scooted back enough to pull her onto her back so he could continue his self-given task on the front of Kana's shoulder. Even though she let herself be pulled into a position that suddenly made her feel vulnerable, the kunoichi kept her eyes looking anywhere other than into his. Letting him do something like this after their episode the night before was leaving Kana feeling relatively embarrassed, as if she had lost some sort of battle and her opponent was now claiming his prize.

He was back to hovering over Kana's body as his lips latched onto the swollen flesh of her shoulder; Kisame's pointed tongue continued its ministrations from before. Instinct took over before she could stop herself, and she found one hand rising to nestle itself into Kisame's shock of blue hair while the other settled over her stomach. His hair was surprisingly soft, if a little knotted and full of tangles from sleep.

A sharp pain shot up her collar when Kisame sucked on a line of bites, and the kunoichi winced with a soft gasp of surprise at the harsh sensation. She made a discontented noise in the back of her throat but didn't pull away when the man ran the very tip of his warm tongue over the offended area apologetically. Instead, Kana used the hand on his head to tug him up so that their faces were level. Blood was smeared across his mouth in a gruesome display that looked disturbingly appropriate for the almost primal look in Kisame's white eyes.

Still slightly shaken by the situation and acting purely on whims, she cupped both sides of his face and flicked the tip of her own tongue over the very outer edge of the blood smear at the corner of his mouth. Kisame growled in response, but she couldn't tell if it was encouraging or warning.

His breath was hot against her mouth and smelled spicy as if he had just eaten raw ginger. It was surprisingly pleasant, she decided. As befitting of the man as it was, though, Kana couldn't help but cringe at the way the coppery scent of her blood overpowered almost everything else. In a display that Kana hoped would get the message across that she wasn't the rogue shinobi's prey to do with as he saw fit, she cleaned his face the same way Kisame cleaned her shoulder. She decided that she wanted to know what his natural scent was like, and feverishly lapped at his mouth to remove any trace of the substance.

"Little bird," he breathed between ragged breaths, "I'd show caution if I were you."

While it was obvious they were meant as a warning, Kisame's words ignited the same competitive spark she felt when they were in the Land of Flowers to collect the son of the daimyo, and she smirked up at him. Kana dragged a thumb over the still-bleeding bite marks on her shoulder before bringing it up to swipe across his thin bottom lip.

Wanting to see how far she could push him, she captured it between her own lips and daintily sucked at the slightly chapped flesh until the blood was gone. Even without focusing much on the sensation Kana could easily feel the dangerously sharp teeth that were resting just behind his lips; she wondered what it would be like to kiss him knowing it would be so easy to be cut open.

Almost as if her were reading her mind, Kisame pulled away in an uncharacteristic show of concern, laying on his side and forcefully rolling Kana over so that she was laying in the same position. Much like last night, he wrapped around her tiny frame and hooked one of her legs behind his own. The hold was possessive but she couldn't bring herself to complain, too content with her little victory just then to worry about anything else.

"Don't heal it," he said gruffly.

The smirk returned to Kana's lips at his command – under any other circumstances she would have immediately healed the injury just for the sake of being difficult, but the kunoichi found it almost endearing. Her upper arms were pinned to her sides again so she could only bend her elbows to grasp the forearms that kept Kana pressed against his chest.

Her shoulder throbbed angrily, though it had stopped bleeding, and she was sure that it was going to be a bitch later that would need to be sterilized and properly wrapped as to avoid any infection. However, Kana had decided the second Kisame sunk his teeth into her flesh that this was a mark she was going to keep.

For now, though, she just wanted to get more sleep before leaving. It had been so long since she felt safe like this.

* * *

 **Note** : So that got a bit carried away. This what happens when I stray away from angst, apparently. INB4 KanaIta's not gonna be a thing. Pls don't angry inbox me over it like some of y'all did when I shot down the KakaxKana pairing lol.


	5. Chapter 5

Whatever being was responsible for the creation of sand could rot in the deepest pits of hell, Kana decided as she carefully lowered herself over the edge of the final cliff, using a steady flow of chakra as a sort of gripping mechanism so she didn't plummet to the rocky ground below.

Very, very slowly the kunoichi scaled down the flat surface that acted as a wall that circled the entire village of Suna. According to Sasori, there was only one gate that led in and out of the village and that was where the majority of their security focused their attention since, apparently, the wastes were too treacherous for anyone to sneak in through the back. Considering Kana had to almost constantly use the Yin Healing Wound Destruction Jutsu as she fought against the sand that had begun to literally tear away at her flesh, she could definitely see that being true.

Pain was an asshole, she also decided, for making her do this right in the middle of a goddamn sandstorm. _'Actually, it was probably_ Sasori's _idea, since he's the one trying to get the One Tails with Deidara…'_

Fuck the Akatsuki in its entirety. There we go.

Kana dropped to the ground with silent ' _crunch'_ before sprinting through the streets that she had memorized as potential routes. With most of the guards' attention being focused to the front of the village and to the skies, coming in through the back and keeping low in the streets felt like the best plan, though that was really only assuming that Sasori's intel wasn't too out of date, since he had left his home ages ago. It _was_ under a new Kage's command, after all.

After wearing the Akatsuki cloak for so long, Kana couldn't help but feel naked without it – she had left the the bulky thing back because it felt cumbersome when she was trying to be stealthy but, now, the kunoichi would have done anything to have something covering her arms and legs from the brutal, sand-filled winds of the desert.

A couple of unexpected voices snapped her out of her grumpy thoughts, and Kana ducked under an awning to press herself into the shadowed wall just as two drunk shinobi and what looked like a civilian passed by. Who the hell gets drunk on a weekday, and decides to go home at 0300?

Still, the chance of being caught reminded the kunoichi to remove her Anbu mask and tuck it into her pouch, just in case someone mistakenly linked her to the Leaf if they saw her.

Unsurprisingly, security was considerably tighter the closer she got to the Kazekage's office building and it wasn't long until Kana had to come to an abrupt halt so she could duck into a tight alleyway. With the Kurogan she could see that there were four shinobi stationed on the rooftop, with one shinobi stationed on the roofs of neighboring buildings; each door had two guards and there were two patrolling guards on the balcony of the Kazekage's office room.

 _'Did they enter wartime and just forget to tell the rest of the world?'_ Kana thought, mildly irritated, when she saw that each floor of the building had four guards patrolling the halls. Not even post-invasion Konoha had the Hokage's office under such tight security, so what the hell?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, it was replaced by the memory of Kakashi telling her how a rogue group of Suna's Anbu had made an attempt on Gaara's life on their mission together; she had forgotten that jinchuriki regularly dealt with assassination attempts. Her heart fell, ' _Poor kid…_ '

Kana pulled a scroll out of her belt and pulled it open to summon a marked kunai. It probably would be safer to use them to teleport up to the balcony and slip in through a window as opposed to using genjutsu on the door guards – this was a no-witnesses mission and the kunoichi really didn't want to have to take out too many guards if she didn't have to.

 _'Actually…'_

She could _use_ a guard – why didn't she think of that earlier?

Probably due to the same reason her mouth was sticking together; the kunoichi was reaching dangerous levels of dehydration.

Thankful for Kisame having wounded her right shoulder, and not her left, Kana aimed carefully for the awning over the balcony and, with a burst of chakra for added strength, she launched it just as the guard reached his corner of the pathway.

He only had half of a second to react before the kunoichi teleported to stand in front of him, already merging the Ishikigan in with the Kurogan and the third accursed dojutsu Danzo had spliced into her eyes. Alarm flashed across his face just as his lips began to part to warn the other guards, but Kana was already forcing her will over his by the time it had registered with him that she wasn't a Sand-nin.

The kid must have only been seventeen or eighteen, but was enormous, and his eyes flew open as a muffled whimper escaped his lips; Kana had to resist the urge to shush him comfortingly out of fear of alerting the rest of the guard platoon.

 _'The village isn't safe,'_ she thought once successfully asserting her dominance over his consciousness, _'I need to sneak in and get the guard plans. I need to make sure everything's alright.'_

An uncomfortable grunt warmed the gloved palm of Kana's hand as the shinobi tried to resist the effects of the forced will, his own thoughts muddled by the genjutsu and her own abilities at shoving his inhibitions away.

 _'Once I check the guard plans, everything'll be alright,'_ she thought warmly, smiling when the kid finally stopped struggling and a glazed look settled over his pretty purple eyes; they glittered in the moonlight like two pale gems.

When she was certain that he had been properly placed under her control, Kana released his face and stepped back to yank her kunai out of the wall, wondering if anyone would notice the small nick in the rocky exterior. If she could use an earth release she would have fixed it just in case, but she didn't. Oh well.

The man turned towards the window and formed a couple of hand seals to disable the traps laid around the Kazekage's office before hoisting himself over the windowsill. Meanwhile, Kana took the opportunity to form a hand seal of her own to teleport out of the area.

With the increasing pain of using all three dojutsu at once on top of a dehydration induced headache, her concentration was admittedly a little off when she reached out for the kunai and, as a result, she wasn't able to sense the cluster of loose rocks that must have tumbled just next to the knife. Kana's ankle rolled as she landed on one and, with a muffled groan, she slipped over the rocks and gracelessly crumpled to the ground in a pile of limbs.

It took just about all of her shinobi training to not lose concentration and immediately break the genjutsu while simultaneously losing control over the hold she had on the Suna-nin; Kana had to simply let her body drop to the ground painfully as opposed to saving herself. The kid seemed to be getting through the building with relative ease, though, and the kunoichi was almost reminded of Neji, with the way he moved so lithely in the shadows. If Neji were blonde and almost as huge as Guy.

Pulling a blank scroll out from the large pouch attached to her belt, Kana began to prepare herself to write all of the information her new little spy was going to be getting her. While it required a fair amount of concentration and discomfort, she couldn't help but admire how useful the technique was and dimly wondered if any past Kana Shimi's had been a genjutsu master. How frightening that must have been… She actually found herself regretting not having come under Danzo's tutelage earlier.

Almost.

 _'Okay, time to focus,'_ she thought to herself, making sure it didn't get into the kid's head as he approached a dark room full of various cabinets. They were locked but, given he was a bodyguard of the Kazekage, the jonin had the clearance that granted him a key to the filing cabinet needed. _'This is too easy…'_

Now came the dangerous part. Kana focused all but a tiny sliver of her attention on both maintaining the jutsus and scrawling down every scrap of relevant information held in the guard reports. It meant that she could make sure nothing went wrong, but it also meant that it would be extremely difficult for her to pick up on anyone that may approach her – she was just within the sensing barrier, where the kunai had been thrown, so hopefully no one decided to take a moonlit stroll along the very edge of the village perimeter.

 _'Kazekage doesn't sleep… Frequently is spotted on rooftops at night… Other times is found reading in the mansion or… Maintaining a cactus garden?'_ Kana didn't exactly peg Gaara as a green-thumb type when she had met him during the Chunin Exams, but, she guessed most didn't peg her as the type to nearly gorge herself on salty foods when given the chance, either _. 'Brother and sister, Kankuro and Temari respectively, are the only guards that escort him out of the village…'_

This wasn't relevant information; Kana let her thoughts mingle into the jonin's as the ache in her head gained intensity and blood warmed her eyes, _'I need to find the guard station information for this week.'_

Immediately he flipped past a few pages and landed on the goldmine of information that she was looking for; she almost purred.

Guard shifts, village defenses… It was all there. Kana's hand quickly moved over the scroll to write down everything she saw on the page through the eyes of the guard. A part of her wanted to see if he could obtain the formula for Suna's sensing barrier, but the kunoichi knew that information like that was most likely something that only the highest ranking officials had access to, outside of the Exploration Group itself.

It wasn't a matter of her being unable to acquire the information, as she could probably just have the kid rifle through some more files and get the list of the members of the Detection Division, or whatever the hell the Suna's name was for the group, but…

Well, fuck the Akatsuki in its entirety, right?

When she was done jotting down information, Kana quickly rolled the scroll back up and slid it into the pouch strapped to her hip and leg.

 _'Alright. There's nothing wrong,'_ she thought warmly, hoping to soothe the man that had been panicking a little thinking his village was in danger, _'I was just being silly. I'll go back to my post now.'_

Now that she just needed to wait for the young jonin to get back to the Kazekage's balcony, Kana sat back on the rocky cliff, careful to not disturb the barrier, and focused some of her white chakra to the ankle that had twisted on the fallen rocks.

Parts of her body were beginning to ache from the near-constant onslaught of sandy wind she had fought through to get this far, thanks to the threat of chakra burn that could occur from too much medical ninjutsu. Not only that, but that constant usage of chakra had begun to wear her out; she hadn't been given time to fully recuperate from the assbeating the kunoichi had delivered to Kisame before nearly sprinting to Suna. The sides of her skull felt as if they were going to split apart, too, from using her eyes for so long. Kana was going to have to get out of the village and rendezvous with Sasori quickly.

Using what chakra she was willing to spare, Kana erased herself from the kid's mind before releasing the jutsu with a groan of discomfort. She didn't really erase herself completely, but he'd only be able to remember flashes of her mostly covered face on the very fringes of his mind. At the most, he'd think she was just a dream.

The thought brought a wry smile to her cracked lips while she brought her mask out of the pouch, snapping it into place over her face. With a flick of her wrist Kana tossed her marked kunai so that it landed outside of the sensing barrier and teleported over to it. Since it was just an object, and not a living being, it wouldn't be detected by the Detection Division, which relied on chakra signatures passing through the sensing barrier.

The kunoichi took off at full sprint, leaving only a small cloud of dust in her wake.

* * *

"It's about damn _time_ you showed up," Deidara sneered from where he was sitting atop the mouth of a cave. He had one knee drawn up to his chest and almost looked as if he had been sunbathing as Kana approached. If she had the energy she probably would have scowled at his blatant lack of respect for his peers.

"Here's everything I could get on the village's defenses," she handed the scroll to Sasori, who used his puppet tail to take it, "Security's pretty lax towards the back of the village, like you said, but there's a small army outside of the Kazekage's office. You'll need to move fast, and stay focused."

That last bit had been focused at Deidara, who had the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros and the attention span of a toddler. The teenager scowled in response when Kana turned her head up so he knew she was giving him an accusing stare.

Sasori hummed, about as much of a 'Thank you' as anyone could ever hope to get from him, and eyed the kunoichi suspiciously, "You marched through two sandstorms wearing _that_?"

Even if she had been able to heal the majority of her now-raw flesh, Kana couldn't keep her barrier strong through the second storm, which had basically been the sand-variant of a fucking blizzard, without sacrificing her chakra point. While these two were holed up in their cozy-ass cave, her spandex suit had been almost completely obliterated and was now basically a crop-top and panties.

"If you don't need anything else, I'll be going," she said matter-of-factly, greatly struggling with speech. Her skin felt as if someone had taken a cheese grater to it before rubbing salt into the raw flesh, her chakra was low, it was hot, she was dehydrated to the point where her mouth wasn't even sticking to itself anymore, her throat was hoarse, and Kana was dangerously close to snapping Deidara's neck just to spite the little shit.

The puppet man said something that had fallen on mostly deaf ears; all Kana heard was that she could go. She formed the Seal of Confrontation and, with a last boost of chakra, reached out to the mark on Itachi's shoulder, and carefully extended the chakra to his surroundings. When she found a safe place to land, Kana quickly teleported to the empty space next to his futon.

Both the sensation of being twisted and dragged, and the immense pain she was in, forced Kana to drop to her knees with a silent moan as the last of her willpower gave out. It seemed that the pair had moved north if the biting cold was any indication – the drastic change from a hot, dry environment to one that was cold and wet served as a shock to the kunoichi's already weakened body, and a wave of nausea crashed into her.

A shaking hand somehow managed to release the snaps of her mask, which Kana chucked to the floor of the motel room before yanking her sandy, suffocating cloth one down. She could hear Itachi suck in a small breath at the sight of what was probably a bloodied face, but Kana only reached out an arm to whichever person would take it.

"Chakra," she rasped. Once she absorbed some chakra, Kana could heal herself and get water and get clothes and… And…

Her thoughts were cut off when an inviting heat enveloped the trembling, ungloved hand that had been extended.

"Were you caught?" Itachi asked as Kana desperately clung to their companion's arm.

She shook her head, "S-storm…" Forming words that required a tongue-to-roof connection seemed to be nearly impossible with the way her mouth seemed to be entirely devoid of moisture, so Kana didn't bother on elaborating. The kunoichi only wanted to focus on the warmth of the strong, rough hand that was gripping her dirty forearm, and the steady flow of chakra that was pouring into her body like its own form of nourishment.

If there was anything Kana could relate to Samehada about, it was appreciating the different types of chakra. Kisame's chakra was cool and almost soothing, as opposed to the fiery sensation of Itachi's and the heavy feeling of Guy's. Her breathing began to normalize as her reserves were filled by the foreign energy that her body was already processing.

When her body no longer felt as if it was going to fall to pieces, she pulled her goggles off of her face to give him what she hoped was a thankful expression. Kisame said nothing and only rubbed away at the blood that had formed crusty circles around her eyes.

Next, water. Her wounds could wait. Kana pushed her tiny frame off of the floor and somehow found the energy to get to the bathroom without staggering or using the wall for support. She didn't even bother with closing the door before shrugging off her Root jacket and yanking off the shredded remains of her jumpsuit.

In hindsight, Kana _really_ should have used the Reserve Seal that was between her shoulder blades, if only to save the poor suit and the general discomfort of having been ripped up by a rock-filled sandstorm…

Oh, well, it was too late for that, now. She cupped dirty hands under the cold stream of water that poured from the sink faucet and brought the small pool of water to her lips. Most of the liquid seemed to only leak between the invisible gaps between her fingers and hands so Kana chose to just lean down and noisily slurp the water straight from the source, feeling as if her mouth was simultaneously melting and coming back to life as water splashed over parts of her gums she didn't even know existed.

At some point her body seemed to have successfully processed Kisame's chakra and, with the help of the sudden rehydration, Kana's mind began to work with a surprising clarity; she could have sworn that she could actually _feel_ the water being sent to each of her vital organs as she greedily lapped at the icy stream.

When did water begin to taste to sinfully delicious?

That seemed to be precisely the moment when her senses fully kicked in and alerted Kana of the presence of a dark figure standing just a couple of feet like a lurking shadow.

The suddenness of his appearance startled her and, in a move that proved that maybe her brain wasn't functioning as smoothly as she had initially believed, Kana jerked away from the faucet. Of course, there's no graceful away of flinching when your face is buried beneath a faucet, so she ended up slamming her nose into the cold metal, which bounced off and sent her forehead into the porcelain sink just beneath it.

With a swear that was mostly lost in gurgles, she slid away from the counter and awkwardly slumped over the toilet, though not without bumping her chin on the unreasonably sharp edge of the counter. Kana wondered if they would just let her sleep like this, sitting on the floor with her arms and upper body draped over the toilet seat cover like Genma did whenever he drank too much for even _his_ body to handle.

Probably not – one of them would probably have to take a piss at some point and her current position would pose an issue.

"I'm fine, Itachi, just let me get into the shower," she groaned, knowing that her body's quivering against the cold and the hoarseness of her voice wasn't doing much to prove her point. Thankfully Itachi seemed to understand that this wasn't the time to question her– or, rather, he just didn't press the issue – and he pulled the door so that it was only cracked open.

Good. Kana peeled her underwear and athletic bra off before lazily sliding over the edge of the tub, tumbling into it like a sack of potatoes being rolled down a hill. The porcelain was almost unbearably cold – seriously, she was going to have to ask where the hell they even _were_ – but the shock of the scalding hot water that was soon raining down on her jolted her nerves into a sort of heavy numbness.

Eventually, when Kana deemed herself warm enough and finally got her bearings, she managed to pull herself up onto her feet and properly scrub a washcloth over her skin. Dirt and blood and chunky combinations of both rolled down her flushing skin in muddy rivulets that pooled around her feet before joining the whirlpool that surrounded the drain.

Muscles that she hadn't even been aware of being sore relaxed under the hot stream, and Kana took the time to assess the damage that had been done to her body during the sandstorm. Most of it seemed to be superficial wounds caused by debris carried in the wind, so they didn't take much effort to heal and it wasn't long before her only real problems were mild chakra depletion, waning dehydration and physical exhaustion from being up for three days straight.

A part of her knew that she should just suck it up and go find an open futon to crawl into, but, the kunoichi was feeling particularly lazy as she turned the faucet to its off position. After a rather perfunctory toweling that really was just her wrapping the towel around her torso, Kana slid down to the floor of the bathtub and passed out.

* * *

There was a comfortable, warm weight wrapped around Kana's body when she began to stir the next morning. This time she didn't find herself reaching for a kunai, choosing to instead slide a hand along the futon until her cold fingers wrapped around the forearm that was stretched under her pillow.

Kisame made a small grunt of disapproval at the sudden sensation but only tightened the arm that was currently wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer into his body.

"Are you always this cold?" he asked grumpily, voice low and husky from sleep.

Kana yawned while using her free hand to tug the blanket up from her shoulders to her neck, "Poor circulation," she murmured as she somehow managed to snuggle deeper into the warmth. A part of her wondered how she managed to find herself in a bed with Kisame again, though the other part didn't seem to care enough to bother asking, and she just assumed it had something to do with the fact that Itachi had managed to roll himself into a burrito of blankets in his futon.

The leg that had been slipped between hers hooked around her shin so that their legs twined, "Prob'ly because you're so damn _small_ ," Kisame rested his chin over the top of her head, "Should eat more. Put some meat on those bones."

"Kisame, are you suggesting I get fat just so you have something warm to sleep with?" Kana managed to worm her way from his grip enough to stretch out her body from its curled position; her tired muscles trembled with the delicious pull of the stretch.

A deep rumble vibrated through the man's chest as he chuckled, "All you little Leaf-nin are so lean, especially your kunoichi. Where I come from, there's nothing wrong with curves," he mumbled, patting her muscled belly for effect.

Something about economic differences danced on the edge of her mind, but, as Kana tried to prop herself up on her elbows to roll over on the futon, she realized that her shoulder had merged with the pillow sometime during her pleasantly dreamless slumber. She hissed when the fabric peeled away from the skin, tearing away small scabs that made an arch of brownish-red splotches on the pillowcase.

Kana pulled the hand around Kisame's arm up to her shoulder so the green glow could take care of the now-fresh wounds, but the man gripped her wrist with a huff. She wasn't entirely sure of what had happened with them a few days ago, but it seemed he had actually been serious when he said that he didn't want Kana to heal the marks so she sighed and made a face at him, "I just want to stop the bleeding so I don't ooze all over the blankets."

One lone white eye cracked open to peer up at her suspiciously, so Kana found herself acting on impulse, something that was seeming to be a common occurrence whenever he was around. She cut off the Mystical Palm Technique to run her thumb over a bleeding puncture wound, scooping up some of the warm liquid that had begun to dribble down her chest.

 _'Kisame's a big guy, but should I really be bleeding this much after nearly four days?'_ she thought to herself while bringing her hand to Kisame's face. He must have buried himself nearly to the gums…

A small surprised sound matched the widening of her eyes when Kisame's tongue darted out to erase any trace of blood in one long lick. His eye crinkled as his lips stretched into his trademark smirk and Kana only shook her head with a small smile. _'What a weird man…'_

When they first met, thanks to the stories told by both Guy and Kakashi, she had been under the impression that the blue-skinned man was some bloodthirsty beast of a human being that lived to stir the pot. Over the following year, though, Kana couldn't help but come to understand him as someone that wasn't all too different from herself – he enjoyed fighting for the adrenaline rush, and reveled in killing because it made him feel powerful, but he wasn't a malicious man, and he loved his village. One of the traits they didn't share, though, was his sense of playfulness.

It was funny, really. Before, he had put her on edge and came off as a threat, but, now…

"Little bird, do you realize that when you think, your eyes glow brighter?" the hand that had been holding her wrist moved up to lightly touch the hair that had been strewn over her pillow, "And your hair appears to change color."

Cold air bit at her exposed flesh as she moved to sit back on her heels, the warm blanket falling from her shoulders to pool at her hips. Kana began to use the hair band around her wrist to tie her hair back into the ponytail it was usually in, but paused when Kisame made a face. What the hell was with him? Controlling bastard.

Kana's fingers moved quickly to tie it into a braid, if only to spite him, "It's a kekkei genkai thing. My hair is white when I'm at my happiest, and black when I'm at my lowest. My eyes always glow but they just get a little brighter the more intense my emotions are," she said plainly, tying off the end of the braid that nearly reached her hip. Kana should probably cut her hair soon.

The smirk faltered, "I've only seen it black."

Oh, that's right, Kana's hair hadn't really changed in the last few months, had it? Whether it be wallowing in the sense of longing she felt for her village and friends, or the stress from their assignments, it seemed that the kunoichi had been in a constant state of piss-poor moods.

She shrugged and made to stand, but Kisame's arm darted out to pull her into another iron hold; Kana was alert this time so she used the flicker technique to quickly move out of range and over to where her gear was lying. "Fool me once," she murmured, pulling up her mask.

Even if she didn't wear it often, due to the Akatsuki cloak usually being enough, Kana was glad she kept her captain's cloak for cold environments like in the Land of Needles, which was snowing even in the middle of March. It was thick and warm and would act as the perfect inner layer, making up for the blatant lack of coverage that her normal outfit provided.

"Is your bloodline trait why your eyes bleed?" Kisame asked, looking slightly miffed from where he was still lying on his side in the futon. At least he didn't insist on pressing the issue like Itachi normally did.

Kana didn't answer and chose to just focus on applying a healing salve to the angry-looking ring of wounds. It stung the irritated puncture marks but it was barely noticeable when the feeling of Kisame's expectant gaze felt as if it was going to burn holes into her.

"Little bird-"

"Why do you _call_ me that?" she hissed, keeping her voice low as to not wake Itachi, while wrapping her shoulder in a fresh roll of gauze. The feline thing made sense, considering Kana summoned cats and apparently moved like one, but birds? No. Even if the tattoo on the inside of her left arm, parallel to Hanako's summon, was a seal for an equally giant crow, Kisame had no way of knowing that.

The smirk he wore earlier had turned into a deep frown that looked both annoyed and thoughtful at the same time. Good. Now _he_ can know what it's like to be asked questions he doesn't feel like answering.

Kana picked up her large hip pouch, which had apparently been restocked sometime during her sleep, and walked over to where their companion was sleeping in a cocoon of blankets, setting it down on the tatami mat next to him.

"You're like a tiny songbird," Kisame said in a low voice, pulling her attention away from Itachi, "The way you move in combat, flashing from one opponent to another, is akin to the way a hummingbird flutters from flower-to-flower. Even your voice, the way that you speak, and hum and sing to yourself when you think no one's within earshot, is just like a bird."

Light flashed against the very top of Itachi's head, which was the only part of him poking out from his nest of blankets, as Kisame spoke, and Kana was glad for her mask having been pulled up earlier. She activated her Ishikigan and locked eyes with the large man who, unsurprisingly, looked and felt startled at the intrusion.

 _'Then does that make you the fowler that uses birdlime to capture his prey?'_ she asked, making sure to just stay on the surface of his consciousness.

A lonely sadness crept into the irritation Kisame was feeling, and he broke their shared gaze to look down at his hand, _'Birds are too beautiful to ruin their feathers with something so barbaric.'_

 _"This isn't right! Lord Danzo, please-"_

 _Danzo's scowl deepened, "Quit acting as if you have any say in what happens, child," he hissed, "You are my tool –_ my weapon _– and I will do with my tool as I see fit!"_

 _Fear and anguish flashed through her body as she desperately twisted against the restraints, muscles cording from the stress, "This is_ wrong _!" Kana half-sobbed, eyes frozen on the pair that floated in a preservative next to the gurney she was strapped to, "Don't make me do this,_ please _!"_

 _The village elder ignored her and nodded to the Root agent that was standing next to the bag of IV fluid running into her arm. At the order, Taru pulled a syringe off of the tray full of scalpels and other medical tools, injecting it into the tube's junction._

Kana brushed the scars around her eyes with the tips of her fingers, feeling more solemn than sad at the memory, _'Sometimes, Kisame… A bird is ruined long before the hunter catches it.'_

 _'Your wings have been clipped and you've been thrown into a cage, little bird,'_ Kisame's eyes rose back up to meet hers, _'But, eventually, the metal will rust and your feathers will grow.'_

 _'And what of the barbaric fish?'_ she asked.

Kisame cracked a small grin, _'It will have to learn to swim close to the water's surface_.'

She broke the dojutsu with a frown and tugged at the blankets that had been wrapped impossibly tight around their friend. How he managed to do this had baffled her since they were children, but it was a sign that Itachi was sleeping well so Kana didn't complain as she worked at getting the first layer off of him. Well, a part of her did because it meant that Kana couldn't watch the rise and fall of his chest when she woke up in the middle of the night to check up on him. That kind of freaked her out.

"Come on, Itachi, I know you're awake," she purred, feeling a slight smile tug at the corners of her lips when his bleary eyes opened to glare angrily up at her, "You know the drill, get up."

Itachi grumbled something that was lost in the layers of blanket around his head, and Kana fought the urge to laugh at him. Instead, she just pushed his knotted hair back away from his face as he helped her with getting the blankets off. Once they went over their morning routine, which involved Itachi's vitals being taken and his cocktail of medicines being taken, Kana could go get that ring from Orochimaru.

It didn't go unnoticed when Kisame shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep, just as that same expression of loneliness was cast over his eyes.

* * *

 **Note** : Someone asked for a direct POV of the missions that Kana would be sent on, so... Here you go :p I guess I didn't explain it well enough in the first chapter, but she essentially goes on intelligence gathering missions for Pain. It's like what Zetsu does, except she doesn't spy on other members.


	6. Chapter 6

_'Clackclackclack'_

Kana stopped and took advantage of the hideout's dim lighting by slinking back into the shadows and dropping to a crouch. The Sound-nin didn't even notice her as they walked by, chatting about their recent training exercise involving some type of tubing; the reminder of Orochimaru's bizarre experiments made her cringe inwardly. When they were out of earshot she jumped out of the corner and resumed running through stone hall, vaguely wondering how the hideout was created with such intricate wall and floor carvings.

All the shinobi needed to do was cross the compound, grab the ring and teleport to Itachi and Kisame. This would have normally been nothing to sweat about, but Kana had already spent five hours outside of the hideout with her dojutsu activated, scanning each and every room for that goddamned ring. Thankfully it was still attached to the hand that Itachi had cut off ten years prior, which still had a minor chakra signature, otherwise the scanning would have taken _days_. Still, there was already a slight throbbing in Kana's temples as she raced around a corner and swiftly ducked into an unoccupied bedroom to wait for another lone crony to pass.

The hand was floating in some tube of preservatives in the laboratory that was only a few dozen meters away, so it only took her a few more moments to slip through the door and quietly shut it behind her.

Kana did her best to ignore the grotesque sight of experiments in fluid-filled chambers of varying sizes as she made a bee line for the inconspicuous tub of fluid with a severed hand. A part of her knew that this was too easy, that it should have been more difficult to infiltrate Orochimaru's main hideout like this, but she shrugged off the feeling and chalked it up to simply being good at what she does.

"Hey there, stranger," a voice called from one of the larger testing chambers; his chakra presence was evenly dispelled in the entire fluid he was contained in so Kana had honestly thought it was some strange water jutsu experiment when she first saw it. As she focused some of her attention directly behind her, hand freezing over the jar, she watched the chakra signature convene into the shape of a young man.

"You're not from around here, are you?" he drawled, "I think I'd remember someone that looked like a _phantom_."

Kana removed the lid of the jar and praised the existence of gloves when she gingerly picked up the disembodied hand to turn it over, "Maybe I'm new."

A bored chuckle came from the chamber, and the man began to dissolve back into the water, "Even the new meat would know better than to just start grabbing at experiments. What do you want with Orochimaru's hand? Got a weird fetish?" He made a small discontented sound when Kana ignored him, "Hey, that mask of yours looks kinda familiar –"

The ring slipped off of the left pinky easily just as someone appeared in the middle of the laboratory in a puff of smoke.

"Ah, Suigetsu, I-"

With the ring clutched in one hand, Kana whipped around and brought her other hand up to form the hand seal to teleport out of the base. Kabuto whirled around as well, eyes widening at the sight of the kunoichi.

"You-"

She channeled her chakra before the man had a chance to ask any questions, appearing in the middle of a forest where the first kunai had been placed. Kana had systematically placed her marked kunai in random locations in case Orochimaru had some way to trace her chakra signature, and she grabbed each one as she quickly flitted from place to place before finally coming to a stop in the small motel room.

Itachi looked over his shoulder to deliver a welcoming smile, "I trust everything went well?"

Muscles that had tensed during her mission found themselves relaxing minutely under the gaze of his pearly black eyes; Kana sighed but lifted up the ring and wiggled it to show that she had succeeded. Without saying anything in response she walked into the bathroom and ran the ring under the hottest water Kana could get from the faucet, adding soap and scrubbing at the small piece of jewelry to remove any remains of Orochimaru's disgusting preservative fluid and skin cells.

The shower's temperature was just as scorching when she stepped in under the stream, feeling dirty just from being within a mile radius of that wretched man; she could have scrubbed at her lungs just to remove any evidence of breathing the same air as the sannin if it were possible.

"Kana?" Itachi's voice was soft and muffled behind the door and she wouldn't have even heard it over the roar of the shower if she wasn't as on edge as she was.

Another soft rapping at the door pulled her out of her thoughts and Kana quickly shook her fingertips through her hair to get the last of the cheap hotel shampoo out, "What is it, Itachi?" her voice was a little harsher than she had intended it to be, but Kana couldn't help but sigh, "Are you feeling sick?"

There was a small click of the door opening that told her that Itachi had walked into the bathroom, as if his familiar chakra suddenly gaining intensity wasn't enough. - for someone with relatively low chakra reserves, his signature sure as hell was remarkable. The kunoichi stiffened and cursed herself for not locking the door when he approached the bathtub, though he didn't pull back the curtain or make any move to get closer, "Did something happen?"

"No," she answered curtly, "It ran without a hitch." Kana felt it wasn't exactly necessary to mention her piss-poor talk with one of the other experiments, or how she had run into Kabuto for all of three seconds; it wasn't as if either of them could have known who she was with her mask on.

Itachi sighed, "You're upset. Please talk to me."

Scalding hot water washed away the remains of the shampoo between her fingers before Kana brought her hand up to her face, rubbing at exhausted eyes, "I just… I'm tired, Itachi. I'm tired, and I feel disgusting," she murmured, "That's all."

Discontent practically radiated off of the man, "Is it because of what he did to you?" he asked softly, one hand touching the shower curtain.

"Do you remember when we were still new to Anbu, and we would help each other shower after missions every now and then?" Itachi asked when she didn't deliver any sort of response.

Kana almost laughed at his question – of course she remembered, how could she not? It was like they were washing away all of the horrible shit they had done or had done to them on their missions. Sometimes it was the only way either of them could properly unwind, whether it was in the communal showers in Anbu HQ or in his bathroom in his family home. She understood what he was asking, though, and found herself hesitating. A lot of the time they had spent together was typically spent in silence when they weren't talking about work, so it felt strange to have him suggest something so... Forward.

Then again, it wasn't really _that_ forward, was it? It was just something they did after rough missions when they were kids; she supposed it wasn't that bizarre considering she basically watched him sleep every night. After a few moments of an internal struggle, Kana tugged the shower curtain back a few inches even as her muscles twitched uncomfortably.

There was a faint rustle of clothing followed by the sound of the cheap plastic curtain being pulled aside. Kana kept facing forward towards the wall and didn't turn or move when she heard the water splash softly against skin instead of the porcelain of the tub – she didn't feel self conscious about being naked in front of him, as it obviously wasn't the first time, but it felt strangely intimate after their night in the woods, and Kisame's macabre advance, and couldn't stop her shoulder from flinching when Itachi's soap-slicked hand met her skin.

The hand pulled back just a little before returning, this time resting over her right shoulder blade and rubbing gentle circles into the muscle there. She could hear his breathing came in short bursts as he struggled in the dense steam so Kana turned the temperature down to something more bearable for him, placing her hand on the tile wall and sighing at the sensation of Itachi's calloused fingers working at a knot that slowly released under his touch, only to bunch back up at the reminder that it was _him_ that was touching her. Kana's body and mind were all sorts of conflicted.

"I've been beaten in fights before…" she murmured, "But… Orochimaru and I… We didn't fight. I moved in to kill him when my teammates had him distracted… And… He just looked at me with this sick, deranged smile… And _bit_ me."

Itachi's other hand smoothed over her back, brushing the long hair plastered to her skin by the water over her shoulder and out of the way. When it joined its pair in massaging the soap into her back, slowly working their way down over her ribs, she couldn't help but release a small appreciative groan that dragged out into a sigh. His touch felt alien and familiar at the same time, and was making the kunoichi painfully aware of how sore her body felt from being constantly on alert.

Kana's eyes slid shut as she continued, "It was the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life. I couldn't move, I couldn't think, I could hardly breathe… He trapped me so my teammates couldn't interfere… He took off my mask…" her voice began to waver, "He _touched_ my _face_ … That sick bastard didn't just beat me in a fight, he… _Dominated_ me… _Marked_ me as his fucking _property_..."

She didn't realize that her shoulders had begun to tremble until Itachi slipped his arms around them and tugged at her gently to hold her against his too-thin chest. "He told me that he had done the _same_ thing to Sasuke and… I should have _done_ something – I should have _gone_ to him… A the time, I was so focused on preparing Neji for the Chunin Exams but…" Kana bit her lip angrily, "I could have done something. I could have done _anything_. But I _didn't_. I didn't go to him until he had already decided to leave, almost a year-"

"I don't blame you," he said softly, "You kept Sasuke safe when he needed to be – you made sure he was properly fed when he was unable to cook for himself, and brought him medicine when he fell ill. You watched over my little brother when he trained on his own so you could heal him or carry him home when he overexerted himself." Itachi's chin rested on the top of her head, "But he's not just a small, weak child anymore, Kana. He is his own person and needs to make his own decisions. All we can do is continue to love him and hope he makes the ones that are right for him."

"I hate you," Kana murmured, feeling his chest vibrate with a small chuckle.

He slid his head down so that his cheek was pressed against hers, "I know," he placed a quick kiss on her temple before pulling back, seemingly unaware of how the kunoichi's body stiffened uncomfortably at the gesture, "I'm not getting very far with washing you…"

Kana ignored her mental discomfort and nudged the shower curtain aside to reach for the towel rack, fumbling around until clumsily grabbing what felt like a washcloth and pulling it into the stream, "This would probably help," she picked up the small bottle of soap and poured about half of its contents onto the cloth before turning to face him, "Here, I'll-"

Slender, pale fingers slid over her cheek as Itachi slid his hand up to cup her face, gently tugging so that she was blinking up at him curiously. Kana couldn't help but wonder when he had gotten so insistent on his wants, considering he had always been passive about everything in the past – then again, that was a decade ago when they lived a somewhat comfortable life together. Still, her breath hitched as their eyes met. Itachi was looking down at her with a gaze that was intense and tender and longing all at once and it made Kana's insides squirm and her muscles stiffen and relax at the same time in a confused mess.

There had always been something about his eyes that appealed to her on a whole new level. Maybe it was how gentle they always looked, even when he wore a cold and stoic mask in situations that required it, or how they possessed a curious glint any time he encountered something that was new to him. Maybe it had to do with how they were so beautifully black, but soft and warm all the while.

"You understand... That the last time I saw your face," he rubbed his thumb over a pale cheek, "Was the night you told me you loved me?"

Kana narrowed her eyes in response - had it really been that long? As she thought, pulling up as many memories as she could, it occurred to Kana that every single time their paths had crossed over the last decade, she had been wearing a mask of some sort. It wasn't necessarily intentional - Itachi already knew everything there was about her for the most part - but she had become so paranoid about any enemies recognizing her face over her lifetime that she even wore it in her sleep behind closed doors. Hell, even in Anbu and Root only those who bunked with her were able to see Kana's face.

She frowned, now fully aware of the sheepish blush that crossed her cheeks, "I'm, uh, sorry. I just don't know if I really trust Kisame, and with Zetsu creeping in on us every now and then..."

No, that was a lie and Kana knew it. Her mask acted as a physical barrier between herself and Itachi, one that she had been relying on to hide behind in the time they had spent together. Despite all of Kana's efforts to hide and suppress it, and everything that had happened in just the last few years alone, there was still a part of her that adored the man standing before her, and that's what the masks were for when the doors were shut. So no one could see just how much she still cared for her best friend.

"You appear to trust him enough to share a bed nearly every night," he hummed with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, which had dropped down to the circle of angry red marks on her shoulder, "I don't particularly appreciate being lied to, but I have to admit that it stings to know that this is what we've been reduced to."

Why is it that every time they spoke of topics that didn't include work, Kana felt nothing but guilt and shame? Her stomach twisted at the sight of his sad expression and she had to avert her gaze to Itachi's chest. "I want to think that he's a good man," she admitted, "But can someone really be good in our line of work?" Kana's eyes rose to meet his again, "We _help_ them. Are _we_ even good anymore?"

The mirth left the man's pearly black eyes, and he touched their foreheads together with a sigh, "I'm sorry."

Kana frowned and brought the washcloth up to scrub at his waist, "Look, what happened in the forest... I was just venting. I don't _actually_ blame you for anything that's happened," she tilted her head up so that their eyes met, "You know that, right?"

"But if it weren't for me-"

"Literally everything that has happened so far has happened because of Danzo," she snapped, "Do I still wish you had just taken me with you when we were kids? Yeah. The way things turned out really pisses me off. But, all in all, this wasn't your doing..." Kana sighed as she realized that there seemed to be no way for her to actually talk about this without losing her cool.

It didn't seem to bother Itachi, because he only smiled fondly, "Even when you're angry, you're still beautiful."

The kunoichi's blush deepened and she gently pushed Itachi around to start scrubbing his back, "Quit being weird," she mumbled, chewing on her lip at the sound of his laugh. Itachi always had a velvety, calming laugh that somehow did the impossible feat of making him even more charming than he already was.

Soap ran down the length of his slender back in bubbly rivulets, following the movements of the washcloth Kana carefully rubbed into his skin as she marveled at how even after camping out in the woods for a week and a half, Itachi never seemed to accumulate any dirt. Even his hair, which had become plastered to his skin by the water, seemed to be perfectly clean.

Then again, the man was basically flawless. Despite being thin, and a little paler than normal, due to his illness, the only imperfections Itachi seemed to have were the small birthmark on the back of his hip, and the mark Kana had placed on his shoulder.

Knowing that she had been the one to ruin such a beautiful being sent a pang of guilt through her chest. Maybe Kisame had been right - maybe it would have been enough to just let him carry her kunai around...

"I'm sure it's quite clean, Kana."

Itachi's deep voice snapped the kunoichi out of her musings, causing her to realize that she had been rubbing the soapy washcloth in robotic circles over his right shoulder for a handful of minutes. "Sorry," she murmured, bringing it down over his flank, "I guess I zoned out." Kana worked on gingerly scrubbing the new area, not wanting to apply too much pressure and end up hurting him.

Another soft chuckle; she loved his laugh so much. "I suppose that's understandable - you've had a rough day."

Rough day. When was the last time Kana was able to just have a normal, relaxing day? The trio was constantly on the move, either collecting bounties or chasing rumors of the Toad Sage's sightings for the Nine Tails, if anything to just keep an eye on him and his progress. Every day could be considered "Rough" if she hadn't already grown accustomed to their pace.

"No, rough was when that jerk I used to date proposed to me right after I yelled at you," she grumbled as she kneeled to clean Itachi's legs, "Even though he's completely familiar with my eyes, he still thought he could lie to me as a distraction. Pisses me off."

He twisted around to look down at Kana in alarm, "What did you say?"

Pausing in her seemingly needless cleaning, she peered up at him and realized that Kana hadn't actually explained what had happened when he and Kisame had taken off with Hanako, "Uh, remember that guy I said I dated? Raido?"

Itachi nodded wordlessly, eyes narrowing in confusion.

"He's a part of the Hokage Guard Platoon, a tokubetsu jonin that specializes in kenjutsu and assassinations," she explained, "He was one of the people in the squad organized to kill me... What the hell is _that_ look for?"

Slender hands wrapped around Kana's wrists as Itachi pulled her into a standing position, keeping their gazes locked, "Why was there an assassin sent after you?"

She shrugged, but narrowed her own eyes, "I'm - well, _was_ \- a Captain for both Anbu and Root. I know a _whole_ lot of dirty things. It makes sense that Lady Tsunade would send a team after me… You know, missing-nin policy and all."

"A kill order was never issued when I left," Itachi said in a low voice laced with a building anger, "Danzo swore that the same courtesy would be extended to you," the grip on her wrists tightened.

A wry smirk tugged at Kana's lips, "Itachi, you _really_ think Danzo's a man of his word that told you everything going on in his head?" She tugged her hands away from the man's near-bruising hold and instinctively brought them up to rest on his slender shoulders, "The entire purpose for Root's existence is so he can do underhanded shit without the Hokage's approval, you know that."

Itachi's face darkened, "He's covering his own tracks, at _your_ expense..."

Another shrug, "I'm not really surprised, honestly. He never promised me anything, and with that twisted shit with the Sharingan-"

"What are you talking about," the man's voice had suddenly taken a dangerous tone as he reached up for her wrists again, "What do you mean, 'Twisted shit with the Sharingan.'?"

Hearing Itachi swear was like listening to a dog sing an opera - and not one of Kakashi's ninken. It was bizarre and felt almost gross, but the anger in his voice was double that, and it made Kana feel suddenly trapped against the tile wall she had found herself pressing against as he glowered at her.

"You..." she brought her arms away from his shoulders and used one to uselessly cover herself while the other tingled with the sensation of building chakra, "You're an Uchiha... And, I mean, I thought you _knew_ \- I didn't think he'd just _take_ -"

She reactively brought a shielded hand up to fend off Itachi when he lurched in her direction, flinching and trying desperately to disappear into the wall she was pressed against. Disregarding the burn of the chakra against his shoulder, he took Kana by the arm and brought their foreheads together again, eyes sliding shut.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "It was not my intention to frighten you. It isn't you that I am angry with."

Guilt spread through her chest like a fiery blossom - of course she knew that Itachi wouldn't lay a finger on her unless Kana somehow posed a legitimate threat to him or the Leaf. Even then he would probably do everything he could to bring her back to her senses first.

"No, I... I know that," she let her palms rest on his chest, one funneling healing chakra to the mild burns, "It's just... Weird to see you actually look angry. It's like you're a different person," she frowned thoughtfully, "It's probably from the upped dosage of Prednisone..."

A dark chuckle escaped his lips as he opened his eyes, "The first time I get to see your face in a decade and I got into a drug-induced rag-"

Kana shook her head to cut him off, "Itachi, I need to tell you something."

The hands on her arms flexed minutely, "I'm listening," he murmured.

"When... About two months into my training, I found out about..." she frowned, knowing it would be difficult to properly explain this without triggering the curse mark on her tongue, "My eyes were… Changed."

Itachi's own eyes narrowed in response - both out of concern and curiosity, so she took that as her cue to perform a demonstration. She squeezed her eyes shut and, keeping her palms on his chest, Kana absorbed enough chakra to activate the third dojutsu she carried.

When her eyes slid open, there was a brief red light that flickered across Itachi's shocked face before Kana gained full control over the mutated Sharingan, "I can't control it very well, and it hurts to use..." she averted her gaze, "And my eyes start to bleed if I use it for too long, or if I combine it with my kekkei genkai. I also can only use it with normal chakra, so I have to absorb it from someone to even get it going..."

Kana released a shaky breath and stared at her hands, "Even then, I can only use it as long as that chakra lasts, so I have to will my body to keep it separate."

"How..." Itachi's hands squeezed her arms in anger, "I don't understand. How did he do this?"

 _Danzo pushed a heavy curtain aside to reveal two pairs of eyes, and five lone ones, encased in jars full of a bluish-green fluid._

 _"All thanks to Itachi," he purred, "I now have my own set of Sharingan to use."_

 _Kana could only stare in horror at the floating orbs, feeling her stomach twist as bile tried to force its way up her esophagus; she clamped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her goggled eyes shut._

 _The elder only clicked his teeth and picked up one of the two pairs, "I have successfully transplanted multiple Sharingan into my own body - the process is rather simple, really," Danzo turned and placed the jar on his desk before reaching out to yank Kana's goggles off; they clattered to the floor somewhere neither of them cared about._

 _"Why are you showing me this?" she hissed between ragged breaths._

 _Pulling her closer to him, Danzo pulled her eyelids open and studied her face intently, eyes darting over to the floating eyes on his desk every so often. "I've successfully merged dojusu so far," he said proudly, "By splicing DNA between a Hyuga and a Shimi. It was somewhat irrelevant, considering how similar your eyes are, but I wanted to be sure it was possible before potentially wasting such rare breeds of kekkei genkai."_

 _Kana ripped her face away from his hands in time to stumble over to the side and vomit onto the metal flooring. Only a fucking moron wouldn't have been able to pick up on what Danzo was implying, and the thought made her heart and stomach twist violently as her shoulders heaved and the muscles in her legs failed to keep her upright. She sank to her knees, one gloved hand on metal panel she kneeled on and the other wrapping around her waist, as if Kana would physically fall apart if she let go._

 _Tattooing seals into her arms and thighs was one thing – it was a matter of convenience on the battlefield and she had no objections to the idea when the elder had brought it up. But, this… Her eyes flitted up to the desk before a dizzying wave of nausea forced them to look back down at the semi-matte flooring._

 _"You're a monster," she hissed, "You're fucking_ insane _."  
_

 _Danzo sucked his teeth in response, and Kana could almost hear his scowl as he spoke, "I am a_ visionary _._ You _are overreacting, like a child."_

"Orochimaru isn't the only twisted fuck that plays with humans," Kana murmured, "The night of the Uchiha Clan's Downfall, he-"

Slender arms wrapped around her waist just as she began to drop to the floor of the bathtub with a groan; Itachi must have taken that as a hint that their shower was over because he quickly turned off the faucet and reached for a towel. Kana could only look up at him apologetically as the glowing orange marks came to a halt, rendering her completely paralyzed for the next few minutes until the mark's time was up.

When he saw her guilty look, the man only shook his head, "Don't apologize for a sin you didn't commit," he said quietly.

Deep down she legitimately understood that the acquisition of the Sharingan wasn't her fault – with the way that she screamed at Danzo, calling him everything under the sun, until he knocked her unconscious, there were some agents that thought she had been killed. It didn't help that Kana had been kept in the bizarre laboratory beneath Root for over a week so her eyes could heal, slipping in and out of consciousness thanks to the number of drugs Danzo had pumped into her system to keep her docile, lest she tear out her own eyes out of spite.

Even so, the knowledge of having someone else's DNA forcefully merged with her own… Kana could only find irony in the fact that it had belonged to Izumi. Sometimes she wondered if the choice had been intentional, or if it was just a sick twist of fate that she would bear the eyes of the girl that the Uchiha clan believed Itachi was destined to wed.

With most of her motor function having returned, she picked herself up off of where Itachi had placed her on the floor and used one of the towels to wring the water out of her hair, stopping when she caught her reflection in the mirror.

Pale, almost white, skin was littered with various markings and scars – most of which Kana honestly couldn't even remember when or where they had originated from. Black tattoos snaked up from her fingers to her forearms in swirled patterns, no two alike as they each had their own purpose. The side of her left thigh had been subjected to the same treatment, with a much more intricate and complex marking for the jutsu Kana hoped she would never have to use. Orochimaru's curse mark was in the dead center of her chest, just over her sternum, which was directly parallel to the black diamond-shaped Reserve Seal on her back.

In the past she had always thought of scars as a testament to one's strength – proof that you survived a difficult battle or a strong opponent. Now, though, as she took in her appearance and _really_ looked at how her skin was littered with evidence of a life of combat, it felt more like each blemish was an enemy's way of laying some sort of claim on her.

She reached out to lightly brush the back of her hand against Itachi's, absorbing a minute amount of chakra as he stopped his toweling off to look at her curiously. Blood trickled out from Kana's eyes in thin rivulets when she merged her dojutsu together in a bizarre electric cloud-like pattern with three tomoe glaring back at her.

Everything about her physical being was something that had been forced onto her. The seals tattooed into her arm, the scores of white and mauve scars, the curse marks, her eyes…

"Itachi…" she murmured, pulling a lock of black hair forward to look at it, "Was I ever really my own person?"

The man brushed his hand over her cheeks in what she assumed was an attempt to wipe away the blood, but he only ended up smearing most of it across her face; he frowned when more small streams replaced the ones he had wiped at. "That's a difficult question to answer," Itachi ran his clean hand through his hair to push his bangs away from his face with a thoughtful expression, "We tell ourselves that becoming shinobi was a choice made on our own but, as children, is that a decision we can truly make on our own? Children are like raw fabrics that can be dyed to any color, and we could have easily been influenced by our village and family to enroll in the Academy."

Kana deactivated her dojutsu as the last of the normal chakra ran out and rubbed the towel over her face to hide the disappointed expression she knew she wore. To be honest it wasn't as if she had been expecting much else from Itachi, as he wasn't the type to just tell someone what they wanted to hear, but it still sucked to have him all but blatantly affirm her thoughts.

"I think the real question, Kana, is whether or not being a shinobi is who you are, or _what_ you are," he said softly as he lightly pinched her fingertips.

* * *

Unko hurt all over. Oh gods, everything hurt.

He stumbled through the forest, unable to muster up the strength to leap into the tree branches and run home. Instead the shinobi was reduced to staggering through the dirt that was still damp from the recent rain, blood pouring over the hand that was pressing into a gaping wound in his flank in a desperate attempt at stopping the bleeding.

The world spun and he slumped against a tree trunk. How did this happen? How was an experienced team of the Leaf's finest shinobi taken out so easily by just one kid? Everything had happened so fast…

Mud splashed up from where Unko's knees dropped to the muddy ground with a low groan. His left arm, which had been numb ever since that kid touched his shoulder with what looked like a type of chakra glove, continued to dangle uselessly as he fell onto his stomach painfully. Cold, wet mud coated his face. Where was his mask? He couldn't remember…

They had been taken.

He needed to get back to the village – he needed to let Lady Tsunade know what had happened.

Unko pushed himself up onto his forearms in an unfathomable display of willpower and began to crawl.

* * *

 **Note:** Ugh, thank god. Now I can stop being vague and junk. This was such a weird chapter to write - is it common for non-romantic besties to take showers together, or am I just strangely close to mine? Lol.

 **INB4:** Mutated Sharingan = not really as good Sharingan. It wrecks her pretty hard if she uses it for too long even on its own. I had the idea to just have Danzo totally rip her eye out and replace it with an Uchiha's, but I have something in mind for later on that I'm pretty sure requires both eyes. I also felt like Danzo would do something twisted like that, for reasons that'll be explained later. :)


	7. Chapter 7

Every time Itachi fell asleep, Kana found herself feeling anxious.

She watched the unsteady rise and fall of his chest as his lungs struggled to provide the required levels of oxygen to the rest of his body, reaching under his shirt to channel white chakra to the necrotizing organs. Even as the act brought some of the color back to his still too-pale complexion, Kana could still see the slight furrow of his brow and the tiny beads of sweat that formed over Itachi's lip despite the relatively cool climate.

It seemed that whenever he fell asleep his body ceased to function properly, and Kana couldn't bring herself to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time; she always would wake up every few minutes to make sure that he was still breathing. Itachi obviously made attempts at putting up a front when he was awake, but they weren't fronts he could maintain once he slipped into unconsciousness. So, every night that Kisame was away, Kana found herself lying next to him outside of the covers with one hand on his chest and her other arm wrapped around his bundled shoulders in an attempt at keeping him warm. The man would freeze to death in a _furnace_.

A low, pained groan was the only forewarning to Itachi's pearly black eyes opening just as blood splashed over both of their chests. It wasn't much, maybe just a few ounces, but it was more than the last time he had thrown up blood and Kana felt her heart continue to weaken as he rolled over onto his side to spit what she prayed was a chunk of partially-digested food and not stomach lining into the bowl she had placed next to the futon.

Without thinking she scooted up next to Itachi so that she was directly behind him, one hand sliding over his slim waist to channel healing chakra to his midsection.

"I'm sorry," he wheezed as he let his head fall back onto her shoulder.

Kana frowned and focused on restoring the part of his stomach that was doing its damndest to resist her efforts and remain partially decayed, "Quit apologizing, 'Tachi," she murmured, "Just relax and focus on your breathing."

Somehow Itachi found the capacity to chuckle despite the current situation and he turned his head to the side enough so that their cheeks touched, "It's been a while since I have heard you call me that…"

His tone struck a chord with Kana, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut to force his words out of her head so she could maintain an even chakra flow to his body. She was pretty damn good at chakra control and, in any other situation, the kunoichi could do this in the middle of a busy warzone, but the way Itachi had begun to talk was beginning to freak Kana out. There was an ever-present sadness that glowed in his eyes brighter than his Sharingan at nighttime, and it rang in his voice every time he spoke.

She understood his depression, Kana honestly did – he had spent the last ten years of his life branded a murderous traitor while acting as a spy for the village and working as a cheap mercenary with Kisame and Orochimaru, all while living with the knowledge that his brother wanted nothing than to end his life in the bloodiest way possible. Kana had only been out with them for a little over a ayear, and her work was mostly running into villages to steal information on bounties, combat strategies and whatever she could find on the remaining jinchuriki. Not only that, but she got a sick sense of satisfaction out of being in control of someone's life so it wasn't as if she felt any real qualms over collecting bounties and, in fact, she would place bets with Kisame on who would be able to deal the killing blow. So she couldn't truly understand how Itachi felt, no matter how hard she tried.

Still, there was a very strong feeling of selfishness that Kana felt every time he got like this, and it upset her to hear him act as if he were already dead.

"I can see your eyes casting shadows; are you upset?"

The warm velvet of Itachi's voice snapped her out of her wallowing musings with a start, and she looked down at the sleepy Uchiha, "I just get nervous when you get sick," she lied, "Do you need medicine?"

He shook his head and made a face at the mention of more medicine – he had more than expressed his dismay over the taste of the viscous concoction that Kana constantly had on hand, even though she tried to raise its appeal by preying on Itachi's sweet tooth and adding a sweet apple flavor to it. Still, it was strange to see him outright reject medication, as he typically only did it when he was feeling particularly fussy.

Because, yes, he was a fussy shit when he wanted to be.

Itachi pulled the neck of his lined mesh shirt over his mouth to wipe at the blood still staining his lips and chin before settling back down into his futon with a sigh. When Kana began to scoot away, relieved somewhat at the relaxed expression on his face, his hand reached back to grip her forearm with a disapproving hum.

"Stay with me," he murmured, "I miss having you by my side."

She narrowed her eyes, "The only time I'm _not_ by your side anymore is basically when you're on the toilet..."

With a small tilt of his head and a flutter of his almost offensively long lashes, Kana felt her cheeks heat up in both astonishment and, well, whatever the hell else could be used to describe how she felt. The man was _pouting_. Perfect round lips were turned downwards, and she was glad that she still wore her cloth mask and to hide her face.

A defeated sigh was released in an audible whoosh and the kunoichi ignored the triumphant glint in Itachi's eyes as she slid back under his blanket, "Lay on your back, otherwise you're going to cough up a kidney."

Even though Kana was entirely aware of him being a strong, powerful shinobi, she couldn't help but move carefully around his body as she situated herself in the futon, making sure to not bump or somehow make Itachi uncomfortable. The blood still staining their clothing and some parts of the blanket were a painful reminder of just how sick he was, and she felt as if she touched him too hard then he would shatter into pieces.

"What is it going to take for you to stop treating me like this?" Itachi asked sadly before turning his head to lock their gazes. When Kana's brow furrowed in confusion, he touched their foreheads together with a sigh, "When you first left the village, I thought you were looking at me with anger, or hatred… But after that night in the forest, in the Land of Earth, you told me that you were waiting for me to die-"

Her frown deepened, "I didn't mean-"

"I know what you meant," he cut her off, "We've been together long enough to where I can see underneath the underneath," Itachi rolled onto his side so that he was facing her, much to Kana's dismay, "After that night in the woods, I came to the understanding that your eyes aren't seeing me with hatred, but that's because you don't see me for who I really am."

A slender hand reached each to cup her still-clothed cheek, and she had to fight the feeling to cringe away, "You're seeing me as if I am already a corpse."

Was that really what he thought? "Don't be ridiculous, that doesn't even make sense," she mumbled, looking anywhere but at the suddenly intense gaze that was locked on her mostly covered face.

Itachi frowned, "Do you truly think I haven't noticed the way you deadpan when I'm around? Have you honestly fooled yourself into believing I am incapable of seeing how you refuse to touch me? What I meant earlier was that you're here with me, physically, but mentally and emotionally you haven't been farther away than you are now."

"That's not true-"

"Then stop hiding from me," the hand on her face shifted so that his fingers hooked under the strap of Kana's goggles, "Show me that you still see me as Itachi Uchiha, and not a dying invalid. You were so open with me after you retrieved the ring... I had forgotten how satisfying it was just to have someone share such intimate thoughts like that."

At some point she had stopped remembering how to breathe, and the woman turned her head into the pillow in an attempt to get away from his hand. There wasn't a chance in hell that Kana was going to let him see her like this – not when he was already so good at reading her that he had been able to pick up on her expression even when it was masked. The hand followed her, though, and she knew that Itachi wasn't going to just let her slink away to hide on the roof until he fell asleep this time.

Instead, his hand slid down to the edge of her mask and swiftly pulled it down before firmly holding her by the jaw so that Kana couldn't squirm away to pull it back up. Itachi followed the unexpected move with another one by rolling them over so that he pressed her body into the futon with his own weight and his warm breath ghosted over her parted lips.

"Do you feel this?" he whispered, "I'm not dead. I'm _very_ much alive, with you, and I am _not_ going to fall apart." To prove his point Itachi suddenly sat up and used his other hand to roughly pull her under him, rolling over and straddling her hips. Red eyes glowed down at Kana as he activated his Sharingan, "We've been fighting alongside each other for thirteen months – is that not enough to put your concerns to rest, or do I need to _overpower_ you and take you for _myself_ since that seemed to be such a successful endeavor for Kisame? Will that finally get things into that foolish head of yours?"

Kana balled up her fist and met his cold stare with a scowl, "That fake villain bullshit won't work on me. I know you better than that," she hissed, "Now get the _fuck_ off of me."

He leaned down to touch their foreheads together again, and his dark grey, almost black, bangs dropped down and brushed across her cheeks as if hiding the pair from the world. "And I know _you_ well enough to know that you don't truly hate me like you want me to believe you do," he whispered.

There was a time when Kana would have given anything in the world to having him next to her but, now that he was here, the feeling of his skin on hers only caused her chest to clench painfully.

"Itachi…" her voice came out as a quiet whisper and she tried to turn her face away, only to be held in place by the grip on her jaw, "Just stop… _Please_ …"

 _'Just let me keep you at arm's length so it doesn't hurt as much when you die.'_

Itachi's Sharingan faded and his expression softened into one that was as sad as before, even as his lips tugged into an apologetic smile, "Sorry, Kana… I'm afraid I'm still selfish," he murmured, using the hand on Kana's jaw to tilt her face up so that their foreheads brushed together.

Ripping her wrist out of his grip, Kana brought her still-balled fist up to punch his jaw. It was a short punch that didn't have much intended force behind it, but it was fast enough to shock the dark-haired man into releasing her face to cup his own. Pearly black eyes widened even further when she rolled out from under him, yanked up her mask and stormed towards the door, picking up her blades that were resting on the wall, still attached to her Root jacket.

Unsure of exactly where her feet were leading her, Kana took off running down the hall of the inn. All she knew was that she needed to be away from Itachi. She needed to clear her head and just put distance between herself and the room full of things she didn't want to deal with. Whatever the fuck he was trying to prove back there was enough to exhaust and frighten Kana in more ways than one.

Pushing away Itachi had been easy; all she really needed to do was continue to use her misery as a shield. It wasn't fair to him, Kana was aware of that much. She knew that he had been honest in telling her that he loved her, but it wasn't as if the kunoichi was entirely sure of how _she_ felt.

For years the people around her believe that she and Itachi would always become some sort of secret item, thanks to their different clans, and that was something Kana had no energy, nor interest, in denying. Romance was never a part of their relationship, like it was with he and Shisui. Still, there was an insurmountable pain that was associated with his leaving that Kana still resented him for. She still cared for him, even if a tiny part of her hated Itachi for leaving her to succumb to her loneliness.

Then she had let go of her grief over his absence, opened herself up to the others…

And had fallen head over heels for a certain tokubetsu jonin that wielded a black sword.

 _'Oh, Raido…'_ her heart twisted painfully at the reminder.

 _"I don't understand, what happened?!" Raido reached out for her shoulder and stopped her before Kana could reach the door, "What changed? What did I_ do _?!"_

 _She reached up to pull his hand off of her, only to find herself unable to let go; Raido was so warm…_

 _"Look, I told you, I'm_ bored _," Kana lied, "In all honesty I was just playing around with you to pass the time because you're easy to manipulate." She threw his arm away to prove her point and continued walking down the hall of his apartment to the entryway._

 _Raido moved faster than she had anticipated, though, and Kana found herself cut off from the door when he rushed to stand between her and the entryway, "I don't believe you, something's wrong," his voice wasn't angry, but soft and pleading, "If I've done_ anything _, kitten, please,_ please, _tell me so I can make things right."_

 _"You're clingy, and annoying, and I'm sick of looking at your disgusting scars," she hissed between clenched teeth before making an attempt at pushing past him. All Kana managed to do was put herself directly into his arms, which wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her close so that she could breathe in the smell of musk and wood and something else that was so distinctively Raido. Glowing eyes slid shut at the warm and wonderful sensation of him brushing her bangs out of her face._

 _Fuck, Kana loved him so much…_

 _A hand snaked up her neck so that Raido's fingers nestled into her hair, tugging just hard enough to nudge Kana to look up at him so he could place gentle kisses along her forehead and brow, "Please, kitten,_ talk _to me. Tell me what's going on."_

 _Pale hands rose to grip his shirt tightly as she squeezed her eyes tighter, "Raido…" she whispered, "I don't_ want _you. I'm_ sick _of you, is that so hard for you to understand?"_

 _"Yes, it is," the hand that had been resting between her shoulder blades drifted down to cup the small of her back and pull her forward so that their bodies were pressed flush as Raido spoke, "I know that the letter you left on my door was bullshit, and you only wrote it because you couldn't bring yourself to lie to my face. Because you've let me hear and feel your thoughts when we make love. You love me_ just _as much as I love you, Kana – you_ can't _tell me otherwise. Not now."_

 _Heart tearing in two, Kana focused chakra to her hand in a smaller form of the Demon Arm and drove it into Raido's body, aiming between his ribs and making sure to miss any organs. She stepped back and shoved him out of the way as he released his hold on her, dropping to the floor._

 _"Come near me again… And I'll kill you," she said just louder than a whisper. Kana turned on her heel and left the apartment, not allowing her tears to flow freely until after pounding on the chunins' door to have them get Raido a medic._

Lungs burning and legs screaming, Kana finally stopped running. She was too heartsick and weary to continue on so she just let herself sink to the moss-covered ground, panting and drenched in sweat. Somehow she had run far enough to come across a small stream in the middle of a bamboo forest, the gentle rays of morning sunlight glittering off of the water that ran through the rocky riverbed.

The kunoichi was unable to appreciate the beauty that the scenery around her held, though, and only laid down in the plush, spongy moss. It was cool and moist against her skin and the sensation was welcomed by Kana's heated flesh. She wasn't entirely sure of where she was, but she decided that it didn't really matter. When she was ready Kana would just teleport to wherever Itachi and Kisame were, presumably the inn.

She looked down at her exposed hand and spun the small black band around her finger with her thumb. Kana still had yet to replace the glove she had torn, so the ring sat on her skin as a cold reminder of what she had left at home. It was the first present Raido had ever given her, and she cherished it almost as much as the precious sword strapped to her Root jacket.

It was strange, the way things had turned out. Itachi left the village, leaving Kana heartbroken and clinging to his memory for eight years before she finally opened up and allowed herself to embrace her feelings for Raido. Now, she was reunited with her best friend and torturing herself with thoughts of Raido.

 _"I volunteered."_

His face was like stone, perfectly unreadable, and he had said that so easily… Kana kicked herself for not biting the proverbial bullet and activating her Ishikigan with her other two dojutsu so she could have read his mind then.

 _"Marry me, kitten. Become my bride."_

Two assassins and one of Anbu's best sensor types had been sent after her – surely that meant that they had the intent to kill, right? Regret built in her still-tight chest as her mind worked over everything that had happened. She should have just gotten into their heads to figure out what their plan had been. Were they sent after her like the Sasuke Retrieval Squad, to just bring her home? If so, why did they send Yugao, Aoba and Tirahashi? It would have made more sense to send people like Guy, or Neji, or Kakashi…

 _'I'm sorry I'm such a careless person.'_

Her stomach twisted. She didn't want Kakashi to blame himself, she really didn't. Knowing that he did, just like he blamed himself for Itachi's supposed snap, tore her up; he was her best friend and Kana used all of his guilt against him.

The soft moss and the sound of her weary heart pounding in her ears muffled the soft footsteps as someone approached her, but Kana was still alert enough to roll onto her back to watch Tobi come to a stop just a few yards away.

"Saaaaay, Mistress Kana, why are you just lying there in the grass?" he chirped happily, dropping to a crouch, "Did that meanie Pain not pay you, and you can't stay in a motel, or somethin'?"

This… This was too much. Itachi, Raido, the Akatsuki, now Tobi…

An agitated sigh escaped her masked lips, "Cut the shit and tell me what you want."

He only cocked his head to the side, "What'cha talkin' about? I'm just-"

Kana flickered over to where Tobi was crouching, whipping both of her blades out of their sheaths as she did so. Any normal shinobi would have been cleaved into thirds, too slow and too weak to fend off the attack, but both swords passed through his body less than half of a second before he teleported maybe a dozen feet away; she probably would have been surprised if the attack had been intended to land a clean hit.

Both of her inherited dojutsu activated just a heartbeat before the kunoichi threw herself at the squealing man again, who only twirled around and teleported again - though not before she managed to get a glimpse at the gleaming red eye that shone through the single hole in his mask.

" _Whoaaa_! _Please_ – Kana – _stooop_!" he wailed while dodging another attack that sliced away just a millimeter of his spiky black hair.

And stop she did – not because of the pathetic mewling coming from Tobi, but because she really didn't have any real interest in killing him. Her attacks were only meant to force the rogue shinobi before her to reveal some level of his abilities; Kana had succeeded.

"I'm not playing this game," she hissed, "Just tell me what you want, _Obito_."

A pause.

The masked Akatsuki member dropped from the tree he had been cowering in, suddenly standing tall. He began to walk forward, clapping his hands slowly, "I must admit that I was skeptical of your intellectual abilities as a shinobi," Tobi's voice had dropped multiple octaves and, as he took slow, measured steps towards Kana, he suddenly was a whole new person, "But your performance clearly lives up to the tales that Itachi wove of you. I truly am impressed but, tell me, how were you so able to pinpoint my identity, when even your compatriot could not?"

Kana wasn't sure if the change in demeanor shocked or frightened her so she threw up a barrier between the two of them, preventing Obito from getting any closer.

"An Uchiha's Mangekyo is more of an identifier than their fingerprint," she said in a low voice, keeping her hands tight on the hilts of her blades, "I just happen to know the man that uses your other eye."

"Ah, so Kakashi has finally awoken the Mangekyo, has he?" he purred.

Around the time she had joined Root, Kakashi had begun to tinker around with Sharingan-specific jutsu, which was when he had realized that he could wield the Mangekyo. It had been the general consensus that he unlocked it when he struck Rin down, as it was _highly_ unlikely that Kakashi had watched Guy die, so no one thought too much of it – then again, no one really knew much about the advanced dojutsu, anyways.

Either way, the only reason Kana had been able to recognize the red and black iris that gleamed threateningly from behind Obito's mask was because she had already been familiar with Kakashi's.

"Quit wasting my fucking time – what do you want?"

"For one, I'd like for you to keep that little secret between the two of us. As stated earlier, your dear Itachi knows me as my title, Madara, which had been bequeathed unto me by my master, Madara Uchiha himself, and that's something I intend to keep a constant in future endeavors," he said casually while folding his arms and shifting his weight to his other foot.

Obito finally was close and still enough for Kana to get a lock on his eyes, and she quickly took the opportunity to delve into the familiar icy sensation of another's consciousness –

Only to be immediately slammed out.

It was almost as if her brain had been rammed into a black brick wall, except the wall pushed back and felt like it was exploding at the same time; Kana bit back the pained groan that clambered up her throat.

"Do not think that I would come here to meet with you without being fully capable of fending off the effects of your visual prowess, Kana," he said calmly, "I am well aware of the abilities bestowed upon you by your clan's lineage, and I can assure you that any future attempts to wield your Ishikigan against me will be fruitless."

Kana's knuckles burned white from the painful grip she had on Kioku and the tanto as her mind worked, glad that Tobi, or Obito, or whatever the fuck he called himself, was a chatterbox; it gave her time to think.

Like Danzo, the man before her was able to wield the Izanagi. Judging by the fact that she had been able to land a hit, as shown by one lock of spiky hair now just millimeters shorter than before, he was subject to the same time constraints that were associated with the jutsu, as well. If Kana were to guess, she would assume that he was using an expertly-wielded Kamui to teleport himself away from attacks he couldn't phase through, thanks to the Mangekyo that still shone brightly from behind his mask.

 _'He's not necessarily_ fast _, but he makes it so that he's damn-near impossible to hit…_ ' she mused while gnawing on the inside of the corner of her mouth. Timing would have to be absolutely perfect, meaning Kana would have to activate and merge both the Kurogan and the Sharingan Danzo spliced into her eyes at once if she were put in a situation where she needed to fight him. Her Ishikigan would be useless if Obito could sustain such a jarring mental block like that.

On the other hand, there was a good chance that, if he wasn't as physically able as she was, Kana could overpower him with a series of attacks like she had done earlier with her experimental feints. _'Unless he's hiding his abilities like I've been doing…'_ the junction where her lips connected began to bleed as her teeth sank through the abused tissue.

"You can sheath your blades, child, I can assure you that my intentions for coming were not to make an attempt on the life that is preserving Itachi's. I am only here to gain some insight to what you intend to stem from your time in our organization." The way he spoke was cool and collected, as if nothing that had transpired in the last few minutes had even the slightest effect on him.

Kana had known that Tobi was playing some sort of game by keeping his façade up – it wasn't difficult for her to figure that his personality was a sham so that the others underestimated him and his abilities, given the organization's intentions and reputation.

Still, the stark contrast between the two personalities that been thrown at her in the last few minutes still left her surprised, if something else.

Something about his words felt sincere, but there was no way on the gods' green Earth that Kana was putting her blades away or lowering the shield that separated them. "What the hell do you care?" she hissed.

Madara sighed dramatically and leaned back against a tree, "Itachi failed to mention how vulgar and hot-headed you were…"

That's right, he had mentioned Itachi earlier… Particularly, his illness. Assuming there were no others, he was one of the last three Uchiha left alive in this world; it would make sense that he would be at least the slightest bit curious to know what her business was with the Akatsuki when Itachi's life was literally in her hands.

However, there was an eerie shroud of menace about Madara that made her skin crawl. If he knew about Itachi's case of Microscopic Polyangiitis, that would mean that the masked man standing before her was either an excellent spy and extremely knowledgeable in medicine, or Itachi had told him personally.

The next question that stemmed from that train of thought, though, was whether or not Madara had been informed due to a mutual trust between the two men, or if Itachi's hand had been forced.

"If I had known, I would have arranged for a properly trained doctor to accompany him on his travels, instead of letting him string along some self-taught amateur."

Swirling eyes narrowed from behind the goggles that concealed them from view as her thoughtful frown deepened into a scowl, "I _told_ you, I'm not in the mood for games. You're already well aware of how my bloodline traits work, so don't try taunting me by downplaying my skills." Her chilled tone probably wasn't helping with the sour impression Kana was already leaving on the Uchiha, but she couldn't really find herself to care as her own mind was trying to process the globs of information that had been dumped into it.

Wait, didn't he actually already say what he was doing here? Shit, multi-tasking was a bitch. She had to spend a few moments mulling over the past few minutes before remembering that Madara was asking why she was with the Akatsuki.

With a heavy sigh, Kana sheathed Kioku while keeping her tanto gripped firmly in her less dominant right hand, deciding that it might be best to play nice and docile for a while. "I think that the Akatsuki's end goal is a noble one," she admitted, "But Itachi's wellbeing is the only thing I care about right now."

"And when Itachi's life is claimed?" was Madara's response.

A cool breeze rolled through the mossy forest that seemed to almost pale in color at his words.

Of course, the same question that had been nibbling away at the back of her mind for over a year – what would happen to the famed Black Demon Fox of the Leaf once the infamous Itachi of the Illusions fell prey to the terminal illness that despoiled his body of everything that kept it functioning?

No… It wouldn't be the disease that would kill him, she knew that.

Still, Kana had no idea what she would do once Itachi's life came to an end. "I just…" she murmured, unable to really form any sort of a coherent sentence that would be an acceptable answer. If she were totally honest, she would admit that she had always just assumed that once Itachi died, she would as well. It wasn't a matter of being suicidal, but what would she have to live for after that? Where would she go?

Sure, the Akatsuki's intentions were respectable, with the intention to end all wars and bring peace to the world, but Kana knew that even if they succeeded then there would be a revolt down the road. Totalitarian governments were unreasonable and never succeeded, in the end.

And, if the organization _did_ succeed… It would mean that all of Itachi's suffering would have been for nothing. It would mean that everyone she loved would be killed in the intended village wipeout, or live their lives in fear of autocratic maniacs.

Kana wasn't going to help Pain and the others in achieving their end goal. Itachi had done a damn good job at keeping other members away from Konoha, and Kana had done her part in making sure certain intel was damaged or manipulated, but what Kisame had said a month or so back had been right – Pain _was_ planning something, and it was obvious that he was planning on making his move against a great shinobi village in the coming months. It would be impossible for them to keep them at bay while still maintaining their cover. She was going to either break away from the Akatsuki, or embrace their ideals.

The choice was obvious.

But it wasn't as if she could just tell Madara, who was still waiting for her response with his arms folded, one finger tapping impatiently against his bicep, that she was planning on betraying the organization in the end. Even if he was an Uchiha, Kana knew damn well that this wasn't a good guy – something had to have happened to him after his supposed death as a child, something that kept him from returning home – and she trusted him about as far as she could throw him. One-handed.

"I suppose that'll just give me more time to focus on the assignments Pain gives me," Kana shrugged nonchalantly and kept her tone as casual as possible, hoping it would be a sufficient enough answer as she turned on her heel, "Which reminds me, I need to pick up some things so-"

"Do you truly expect me to believe that he's just a distraction in those peculiar eyes of yours?"

She didn't bother with a response and formed the hand seal for the flicker technique so that she could get away from the man that made no effort to chase after her, knowing full well that he would be watching her; he always had.

* * *

It had taken more than a few hours for Kana to find her way back to the village – she had run a lot farther than she had initially thought while she was zoned out. It probably would have been faster for her to just teleport back to Itachi and then walk out to the main road, but her mind was still reeling from everything that had been said in the last six or seven hours.

 _"You don't truly hate me like you want me to believe you do."  
_ The hand holding the bag of takeout tightened as her feet seemed to turn more and more into lead with each step.

 _"So are you hesitating because you're afraid of becoming attached to Genma, or because you're afraid of what will happen when you let go of Itachi?"_

If she had the emotional energy, Kana would have grinned darkly at the memory. Neji had been so insistent on her letting go of her longing for her childhood friend so she could move on and be happy with a man that would be able to take care of her, emotionally. Even if his mark was a little off, he had been right. It was ironic how Kana was in almost the same exact situation as before, but with the people involved being swapped.

Just like before, she was afraid of being hurt and was taking that fear out on people who didn't deserve it.

Deep down there truly was a part of Kana that still genuinely loved everything about Itachi, even if it was buried beneath years of resentment and hurt. She was mature enough to admit that this time around.

Even so, there was a much larger part of her that was very much close to the surface that understood that pursuing anything with him would only make his unavoidable death exponentially more painful. Was she willing to put herself through that level of suffering for a year or so of whatever happiness could come from embracing her beloved friend, however tainted that happiness may be by the lingering guilt caused by her feelings of hurt and longing for her village?

 _"Don't heal it."_

And then there was whatever the fuck happened with Kisame… Kana's free hand rose to graze the still-healing wound absentmindedly. Neither of them had spoken of what he had done to her, and nothing had changed in the way they regarded each other, but there had been a couple of moments where she caught Kisame sneaking a peek at her shoulder when he thought she wasn't looking, as if he were trying to look through the fabric of her Root jacket.

A brightly colored stall to the right caught Kana's attention as she approached the end of the rather crowded village street, and her eyes narrowed slightly at the sight. What the hell was a vendor doing selling ice cream in cold weather like this? Sure, things had been warming up just a tad as the end of winter pulled up, but did that really warrant adding frozen treats to the menu just yet?

Still, Kana found herself gravitating towards the temporary establishment, digging her wallet out from the large pouch on her hip that contained personal items and medical equipment. Not only was he selling mochi ice cream, but the guy actually carried five different flavors _and_ every cold beverage under the sun.

 _"It wasn't until I realized that I wouldn't want her torturing herself like that over me,_ _and that she would have felt the same way, that it became easier to move on."_

She frowned at the memory as she stared at the variety of colors before her. Things were different then, weren't they? The aforementioned circumstances were similar, sure, but they weren't identical.

 _"Marry me."_

Fuck, she was so confused. It was like the kunoichi was a character in some ass-backwards Icha Icha volume where any choice made was just going to lead to an unhappy ending; Kana never thought she'd be wishing that some perverted old man was scripting her life.

"I'll take two of everything, please."

The vendor gave her a questioning look, as if he himself didn't believe that someone was interested in buying ice cream in the cool weather, never mind ten servings, but he just shrugged and put each pair into their separate boxes. After handing over payment plus a generous tip – it wasn't like they were even remotely strapped for cash and Kana knew that the Land of Tea didn't have the strongest economy – she formed the Seal of Confrontation. Even with the cool weather and the ice creams being packed together in a bag, she knew that there was a good chance that taking the time to walk back to the inn would probably result in the ice cream melting.

Itachi's head snapped up as she teleported into the room, a score of emotions flashing across his face before finally settling on one: Relief.

"You came back," his voice sounded hoarse as he spoke.

Kana set the bags of food down on the floor before crossing the room to where he had been huddled, kneeling down by his side and reaching out to start their morning routine. "Of course I came back," she muttered while checking his lymph nodes, "Why wouldn't I?"

Guilt began to replace the relief that had lit up his too-pale face, and Itachi hung his head, "I threatened to _force_ myself onto my only friend," he whispered, shame ringing in his voice.

The hands on his wrists tightened as she took his pulse, "Yeah, well, I knew you were full of -" she froze, eyes widening, and looked up, "Wait, you thought… You thought I'd just _leave_ you?"

The shame in Itachi's voice had reached his eyes, which were looking up at her with a helpless, almost desperate expression that would have knocked her flat on her ass if she wasn't hanging onto his forearms. There had only been two moments where Kana had seen that look in his eyes – when he was suffering a mental breakdown over his guilt of what they had done in the Land of Iron, years ago, and when Itachi had left the village after slaughtering his clan.

He was silent but the way that he stared up at her with a near-panicked expression made Kana's heart feel as if it had been dropped into a bucket of dry ice and then sliced in two. How long had he been like this? With the way Itachi had been sitting, she assumed he was just waking up from sleep but, as her hands rose to the tops of his arms, she realized that he was too cold to have been sleeping on the futon.

Itachi normally was cool to the touch due to his illness, but he was even colder than normal. _'He must've been sitting like this for hours…'_ she thought quietly, pressing her lips together into a tight line at the thought.

Food forgotten, Kana dug into her pouch to produce a new bottle of medicine and some vitamins, "Here, you're going to take your meds, then we're going to get you warmed up before you catch a cold. And then we're gonna talk," she leaned into touch their foreheads together while pouring a carefully measured amount of the viscous fluid into a small cup, "And you're going to get that shit about me leaving you out of your head, alright?"

Some, though not much, of the color returned to Itachi's face and he nodded slowly before tilting his head back to swallow the foul-tasting liquid. As many times as he had to throw his head back while taking the myriad of medications and vitamins that Kana pushed in his face, she sometimes wondered how he didn't develop some sort of muscle tension or whiplash. Speaking of which…

She looked back at the stacks of food boxes still sitting by the door, "You need to eat something with that pink pill," Kana said as her hands worked through the process of screwing caps back onto bottles and placing them back into her hip pouch.

Itachi's face fell again, though this time he mostly looked disappointed instead of downright depressed, "But I'm not hungry…"

 _'No shit,'_ she thought to herself, opening the clasp of her belt and letting it drop to the ground. He was never hungry thanks to the disease. Kana had hoped that the Prednisone would counteract that particular symptom, but it seemed to only make him irritable or depressed – unlike her, Itachi didn't stress eat. Rather, he refused food entirely and chose to sleep and, as a result, fluctuated in weight more than Kana would like.

When it became clear that he was going to be forced to eat, Itachi drew one knee up to his chest and his long eyelashes fluttered to cover his downcast gaze. It was almost comical to see him pouting, which was such a stark contrast to the cold demeanor he wore in public, and Kana couldn't stop her lips from twitching upwards at the corners just ever so slightly.

Thankfully, the street vendors had a fair amount of foods that she knew he liked. She was even more thankful that the majority of his favorite foods allowed for a fair amount of nutrition, if you didn't take his sweet tooth into consideration. Gods knew he had about fifteen of them at the very least.

"Perk up, buttercup," she teased while stuffing the bag of mochi ice cream into the tiny fridge provided by the inn. It wouldn't keep them from melting, but it would slow down the process considerably, "If you don't eat, that pill's gonna make you throw up all the junk you just took. If you throw up your medicine, you'll have to take it again. And then you'll be grumpy for the rest of the night." Kana grabbed the box of various onigiri, a small box of daikon salad made with mixed vegetables, and some boiled cabbage, scooping up the disposable chopsticks thrown into the takeout bag and handing the stack to Itachi.

It was all gentle food for the man's stomach, which was probably still tender from the perforation that caused him to throw up that morning. It also happened to be some of his favorite dishes, and his pout significantly lessened at the sight.

After dropping down next to him, Kana pulled the blanket off of the futon and draped it over their shoulders. She grabbed a pair of chopsticks and pulled them apart, plucking up some of daikon salad for herself. Kisame was out doing whatever the hell Pain was making him do in the village hidden in the freaking boonies so she didn't bother with worrying about feeding him. He probably wouldn't be back until the next morning, anyways.

They sat in a comfortable silence as they ate; Itachi's mood seemed to brighten as he worked on his second rice ball. Seeing him liven up almost always lifted a weight off of Kana's chest but, as she chewed thoughtfully at whatever she was mindlessly eating, her own mood slowly darkened.

Depression and irritability were common symptoms from those taking Prednisone – and, well, people who were aware of their impending death – but this morning had been more than just Itachi being fussy. He had been angry, _really_ angry. Was it beginning to make him aggressive, or had it just been the stress of everything building up on him? She could wait and see how his behavior changed over the next month or so, maybe put him on another cortisone product like Prednisolone...

 _'That'd probably just make his mood worse, considering it's more potent,'_ she thought glumly, stealing a glance over at Itachi. Still, it was obvious that he was getting worse. Kana didn't feel comfortable with upping his dosage much higher than it was already at, but maybe she could look at getting some Rituxan. It had been recently approved for treatment of Microscopic Polyangtiitis in conjunction with glucocorticoids, and was okay to use with the Azathioprine he had been taking with the Prednisone… They'd have to be careful with him being exposed to germs and sharp objects, but it would help stall the disease for a little while longer.

Though she was still back at square one if his mood swing from that morning _was_ from what she had him on. Not only that, but there was a possibility that it could cause his weight to drop even further, and the other side effects were miserable enough on their own.

Chopsticks tapped against the bottom of a takeout box with a ' _clack'_ and both the suddenness of the sound and the unexpected lack of whatever she was reaching for startled Kana out of her thoughts. Next to her, Itachi chuckled and handed her one of the two rice balls he hadn't devoured, "Ryo for your thoughts?"

Kana shrugged, "Just thinking about maybe putting you on another type of medicine to hopefully slow down the perforation in your gastrointestinal system," she muttered, taking the offered rice ball and taking a rather large bite out of it. Whoever made these used really sweet rice and absolutely no salt – it was probably a regional thing, like with the warm onigiri wrapped in bamboo leaves in the Land of Grass, but it was still relatively disappointing to someone that enjoyed salty and spicy foods over sweet. Even the salmon inside was somehow made to taste saccharine. It explained why Itachi had eaten it so eagerly, though, so that was good.

"That's what I meant earlier," he murmured, suddenly looking sad again.

Confusion rang through her head for the briefest of moments before Kana remembered what the man had said that morning about her only being physically near him. She sighed and reached out to pinch his fingertips, "I really am sorry," she admitted, "I want to say that it's unintentional, but… It's not. It's just easier, I guess, to only think about your health."

Itachi's face somehow managed to fall even further at her words – he wasn't pouting, like before, but there was an expression that held a raw and intense look of disappointed depression in his eyes. In response, a cold hand gripped Kana's heart and managed the unholy feat of squeezing it hard enough to form even more cracks than it already held.

Sighing, Kana leaned her head back so that it was resting against the wall, "Do you… Do you remember what you did to Izumi? Right before she died, I mean." Even without looking over at him she could feel the alarm that set into Itachi's sad expression; she could hear it in the way he sucked in the smallest amounts of breath. Of course he remembered. How could you forget the death of your lover when you were the one that struck her down?

 _"And when Itachi's life is claimed?"_

The hand around her heart tightened and forced hot tears to prick at the backs of her eyes.

"After I left… I just took off running. I don't really think I had any sort of destination in mind, but I ran for hours into this mossy forest that had both bamboo and normal trees… It was so beautiful. So I stopped and decided to lay down right there, right next to the river, and rest…" Kana's eyes slid shut as she spoke, "And then Madara found me."

Itachi's fingers twitched beneath hers in response and she could hear his breathing become infinitesimally shallower. It was strange how he was the one so willing to lose his composure, when the man next to her had always been the one to keep his cool in every situation that life had thrown his way.

Well, almost.

"He asked me what I was gonna do when you were gone. I don't know why he cared, because I didn't bother to ask, so I just said some shit that he probably didn't even believe and left, but…" Her eyes burned behind their lids as the tears spread, "It's something that's been on my mind for a while… And… I don't think I can do it."

"What does this have to do with…" Itachi's breath hitched as her words sunk in, " _No_ –"

Kana cursed herself when she felt the warmth of her tears squeeze out from between her lashes and trickle down her cheeks, and she turned her head so that she could look at him, "I'm not strong like you, Tachi… I can't do this – I can't live like this on my own…" A choked sob cut her off and Kana felt calloused fingers interlock with hers.

"You _can_ , and you _will_ , Kana. You'll do it _because_ of that pain – so others don't have to endure the hardships. By shouldering that burden and toiling in the shadows on behalf of our comrades, we are ensuring a future for the Leaf and the rest of the shinobi world where the Will of Fire lives on," Itachi's voice, although sad, carried a serenity that wrapped around her aching chest like a warm, velvet blanket.

His body twisted so that he could cup Kana's cheek, thumb wiping at the stream of tears that now fell freely, "Choosing to bear the weight of our mission on my own was a mistake for more than one reason, and I have paid the price for my foolish arrogance," he continued, "Which is why, when the time comes for me to be slain by Sasuke's hand, it will be my dying wish that you find a companion of your own to help you through those dark times."

Turning her face into Itachi's hand, wanting to memorize the feel of every groove and callus his palm carried, Kana released a quiet sob at his words.

 _"Neji, there's… There's a very good chance that I'm going to leave for a mission one day and not come back. When – if… If that happens, I… I just want you to know that I love you, more than anyone in this world, and I did everything I possibly could to come back to you."_

In the back of her mind she couldn't help but wonder if this is what it felt like for Neji when she said those words to him after the Sand and Sound invasion – at the time they had seemed right, like something that needed to be said, but in hindsight… Maybe it only inflicted the same pain onto Neji that she was feeling as she finally looked into those beautiful pearl-like eyes that gazed back at her.

She didn't want him to die. Kana's heart and soul screamed at the notion. Even if the situation were different, and they were back home in the warmth and safety that the Leaf provided, every fiber of her being felt as if it was going to shred into pieces by imagining what it would be like for Itachi to leave this world.

This wasn't fair, this _wasn't_ _right_!

What did they do to _deserve_ this?

The hand not holding his reached up to clutch his forearm, and she clung to Itachi as best she could in their position. " _Please_ ," she whispered, "Don't make me do this – just let me live a happy life, even if it isn't real." Kana's squeezed her eyes shut again, as if she could just close out the world, "Why is it that you're the only one that gets to be selfish?!"

Pulling her head up so that their foreheads touched, Itachi placed a feather-light kiss on the very edge of her cheeks, just like she would do with the kids, "Because that's what being selfish is," he murmured, "Tell me, do you wish to be killed by Tsukyomi so badly?"

No, of course not. Kana didn't want to die; she wanted to live a long and full life. She wanted to watch Neji grow up and get married and have children, instead of just watching his jade medallion in a desperate hope for a sign that he was alive. She wanted to see what kind of man Lee would turn into – if he would join an elite force or choose to become an instructor like the father figure they shared. She wanted to care for her platoon in Anbu. She wanted to watch Sai learn to truly smile, and to properly hold someone for the first time. Kana wanted to see Sasuke find a new family. She wanted to see Torune able to reclaim his friendship with Shino.

But, no matter how desperately the kunoichi wanted those things, she would never see any of that happen; those would be things forever out of Kana's reach.

"I don't want to live a life where you don't exist."

There it was, the answer to every dark question that had been plaguing her mind for the last four months. As hard as she tried to suppress it, as much as Kana attempted to ignore it, the cold truth was that Itachi was more than _just_ her friend. It was like a totally separate plane that the concept of romance and friendship didn't touch. It was the same bond they shared with Shisui.

Losing that kind of bond for a third time would destroy her. A world she didn't share with Itachi, her last precious person, was a world that simply didn't exist for her. He was the lost piece of glue that kept her from shattering into a million pieces, crushed by the unearthly weight of everything she had been put through in her lifetime.

Pain flashed across Itachi's face, settling into a sorrow that etched into the stress lines around his eyes and mouth. "I see," he said thoughtfully, the sadness on his face ringing in his velvety voice, "If that is truly what you wish for, Kana, then I will grant it for you when the time comes."

As the words left his mouth, his frown only deepened and Itachi slid already-grieving eyes shut. The uncomfortable heat of shame bloomed through Kana's chest like a white-hot flower, knowing that she was a terrible bastard for asking that of him, but she couldn't help but feel a sense of serenity at his promise.

All of this hurt, all of these tear-filled moments, all of the worry and conflicted feelings over what to do once Itachi was gone… It would be over soon. Her own eyes closed and she let Itachi sag into her body, looping an arm around his trembling shoulders and gently brushing his long, silky bangs away from his sickly face that was beginning to gain some color thanks to the food and medicine.

"Thank you, 'Tachi."

* * *

It wasn't until many hours later that Kisame returned from whatever assignment he had been on. Itachi had fallen asleep by then with blankets pulled up so that you could only see the top of his head, sleeping away the seven servings of mocha ice cream he had packed away while watching television. The pair had spent the afternoon lounging together, an act that was painfully rare, and simply basked in the comfort of each others' presence.

Relaxation was such a foreign feeling to Kana anymore, so she didn't bother resisting the content smile that tugged at her lips when Kisame entered the room. _'How was your date?'_

The man grimaced at the cold sensation of her bloodline trait's effects but gave a lukewarm huff at the joke _, 'Prince Charming asleep?'_

She frowned at the blatant dodge of her question, _'Yeah. He woke up vomiting a little more blood than the other day so I've been getting some work done while he rests,'_ Kana tapped the two open medical texts and a notebook that was stretched over her lap for effect, _'Are you okay?'_ she asked, feeling the sense of uneasiness trickling in from her friend's consciousness.

 _'I found something you'll probably find interesting,'_ he shifted uncomfortably and removed both his hitai ate and Akatsuki cloak, _'Let's step out for a second.'_

Kisame wanted her out of his head. Alright, fair enough. The kunoichi snapped the books shut and placed them off to the side with the notebook full of the information she had copied from the Shimi scrolls. Pulling her cloth mask up to cover her mouth and nose, Kana followed the man out the door and down the hall so that they were out of earshot.

"I was collecting a bounty near the border and came across a mask," Kisame lifted up an oval-shaped mask, "I figured it would be something you'd be interested in."

Kana took the Anbu mask from his outstretched hand as her stomach plummeted; she was painfully aware of who it belonged to almost instantly. The mask had been carved into the shape of a mouse with a purple upside-down triangle for the nose, two curved lines stretching out for the mouse's mouth and a tiny little curved line under the mouth to show as the bottom lip. When Unko first joined her platoon she had immediately noted how it looked like a cute smiling mouse.

She closed her eyes and gripped the edge of the mask tightly, "What happened?"

"I don't know, I wasn't there," Kisame's voice was low as he spoke, "Strangely enough, there wasn't a whole ton of blood – there were some shattered mask remains and a little blood, but when I tried investigating, I saw four pairs of tracks coming in from the south and one from the east…" He crossed his arms just as his eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully, "There was one set of footprints heading back south, one heading east, and one being dragged east. I tried following the tracks heading south but had some issues with the border patrol."

Shattered mask remains? Anbu masks were made with withstand most explosions – what the hell could have shattered them? What was even more troublesome was that, with the way Kisame recounted the scene, it sounded like the Anbu team had been ambushed by just one man, with only one managing to escape while the others were dragged off. But what kind of person was strong enough to take out four elite shinobi and carry _three_ at _once_?

Bright eyes focused on the mask in her hands. Unko was young, but a fierce fighter that could overpower even veteran shinobi as an accomplished master of the Gentle Fist.

"Someone you knew?" Kisame didn't sound snarky, for once, but genuinely empathetic.

Kana nodded slowly, "Our clans were close. I had known him for a few years…" she swallowed and tried to steady her voice, "He was under my command when I was a captain. I was the one that submitted the letter for recommendation when Lady Tsunade expressed interest in inviting him to join Anbu."

A heavy blue hand plopped down onto her head and ruffled her hair lightly, "You can't blame yourself for this, little bird," he murmured.

What little bit of her that was rational told Kana that he was right, that there was a chance that Unko would have died in battle one way or another. Still, looking down at the mask that had a tiny blood smear on the inside, she couldn't help but feel responsible for the death of her former subordinate.

"I don't understand," she said, voice louder than a whisper, "Who takes out a team of Anbu without spilling blood?"

The warmth of Kisame's hand dropped down to her shoulder as his frown deepened, "I don't know, I figured you'd have an idea."

Kana sighed and gnawed on her lip, dragging her eyes away from the mask to look up at her companion. Even if he had only been gone for a couple of days he looked as if he hadn't slept in a week, with dark shadows circling his eyes. "You go to bed. I'll take watch tonight."

"Itachi insisted we let you take watch so you could cope with the change, but," Kisame's eyes narrowed, "You _do_ know that we don't need to sit watch-"

Silver-white eyes flashed dangerously as Kana's grief began to morph into anger, shutting the shark man up. He didn't look amused like last time, just… Sad. The kunoichi pivoted to rush back to their room, snatching up her cloaks and belt; she unhooked the bag of medical supplies and set it on the small table.

"If you're hungry, there's some food in the fridge," she muttered before sliding back the paper window and jumping out.

* * *

"You're telling me that _another_ unit's gone missing?!" Tsunade's voice was raised and harsh as she glared over her desk at the shinobi looking back at her with grim expressions.

"Lady Hokage, we've noticed that there's been a pattern in the disappearances," Shikaku stated thickly, both uncomfortable over the situation and the Hokage's anger, "Every shinobi that has gone missing in the last three months has been a member of the Anbu Black Ops, including Danzo's foundation."

Also," Shikamaru added, arms folded over his chunin vest, "Each team had at least _one_ member that wielded some form of a kekkei genkai, or knew a valuable hiden, including the defected Ishi-nin that was capable of using steel release."

Kakashi nodded and slid his hands into his pockets, "And they all were exclusively sent on assignments that had them in or around the western countries that border of the Land of Fire, with the farthest team being assigned to a mission in the Land of Mountains."

From where he was leaning against the wall near the door, Yamato cleared his throat, "On top of that, we were only able to find one body when Tirahashi and I were sent out to destroy them. Every time we tracked the teams, the trails went cold even when Kakashi let us borrow some of his ninken. The thing is, though…" Even from behind his Anbu mask, Shikaku could tell that his frown was deepening as his mind worked, "There was always a sign of a struggle in the tracks, but there was rarely any blood to indicate that the fight had been fatal."

Tsunade scowled, "So they aren't being killed in action."

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed in response, "No. They're being kidnapped."

* * *

 **Note** : Kana's story, now with 53% more of a coherent plot! Merry Christmas, nerds.


	8. Chapter 8

Kana sighed as Unko's body began to disintegrate, the small barrier prison around his body humming gently beneath her hands.

She had found him lying face-down after tracking him from the point of the scuffle with whatever individual had ambushed them, having bled to death from being cut from his flank to his abdominal artery. A part of her hoped that he had been the one to escape, but that part of her was hoping he had made it home.

Instead, Unko had only seemed to make it 100 miles southeast of the Land of Waterfalls border. Considering his injuries that was still a fantastic feat on his part, but…

"Zetsu, you know you can't hide from me."

The white humanoid figure emerged from the boulder he had been hiding in, looking both miffed and amused at the fact that he had been caught, "Pain's been trying to get in contact with you for your next assignment, ya know," he said cheerily, "He sent me aaaaall the way out here just to find you. Isn't that exciting?"

Kana narrowed her eyes and released the jutsu before tying Unko's forehead protector onto her belt. She wasn't entirely sure what she was planning on doing with it, but it seemed better to take it with her rather than to just leave it to rot with his melted body. "Then why follow me for this long?"

"You're a curious girl," White Zetsu's grin widened and the kunoichi had to fight the urge to shiver, "I wanted to observe you for a little while and figure out what you're up to," his smile widened so far that Kana was genuinely surprised that his head didn't split in two, "What on Earth _are_ you doing?"

With his freakish smile and singsong voice, Kana was almost reminded of Tobi – or, well, Madara or whatever the hell he wanted to be called – and his bizarre façade. There seemed to be a difference, though, considering the Zetsus were genuinely useful to the organization, whereas Madara just pretended to be a useless moron. She supposed it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for White Zetsu to spend time following her around out of curiosity, especially considering he probably had other Spores doing whatever work needed to be done.

"I'm destroying a body so other ninja can't use it," she said plainly, as if it were totally normal for someone to spend two days tracking a dead body and then using waves of chakra to reduce it to mush.

"Liars are _real_ naughty, you know," he hummed, "Even if they're just lying by omission, don't you agree?"

Kana's eyes flashed from behind her goggles, "I fulfill my duties to the Akatsuki by finishing assignments given to me. What I do on my own time is _my_ business," she said in a low voice, standing from Unko's remains. A burst of chakra to the small of her back blasted the Spore off of her body so it dropped to the ground with a wet ' _slap'_ to add emphasis.

Oh god, his grin _continued_ to widen – how was that even _possible_ – as an eager excitement lit up his yellow eyes like sparkling gold orbs, "You knew I had marked you!" White Zetsu squealed as he turned over, still half-in the boulder, and flopped backwards like a young girl hanging her head off of the side of the bed while on the phone, "Oh you sure are really fun, Kana! Say, do you mind if I come with you for a-"

" _Yes_ , Zetsu, I _mind_ ," she snapped, simultaneously angry and freaked out by his behavior, "Now if you'll excuse me." Praying as if Neji's life depended on it that her kunai was all alone, Kana formed the Seal of Confrontation and teleported to the single marked kunai that she had left in the Leaf.

Immediately she knew that she was alone, appearing in Kakashi's bedroom in a swirl of cloaks and disheveled hair that was much too long for her comfort anymore. The kunoichi briefly considered walking into the kitchen to a glass of water and aspirin to fend off the headache she was beginning to develop, but knew that there would be no way that Kakashi wouldn't notice. Even if she were to clean up after herself, staying in his apartment for too long would leave her scent everywhere.

Her heart warmed minutely. He had kept the kunai.

Kana swiftly climbed out of the window and jumped to the roof so she could sprint towards the Hokage's office while simultaneously cursing the man for living so far away. It was much too hot for the two layers of cloaks, as opposed to the still-freezing weather of the Land of Needles' coastline, and she wished she could just shed the inner layer-

 _'Oh, shit.'_ Kana came to an abrupt halt just outside of the Konoha Stadium; she was still wearing her Akatsuki cloak. After Itachi's and Kisame's first attempt at abducting the Nine Tails, and the recent acquisition of the One Tails, the village's high ranking officers were aware of the organization and their intent to gather the Tailed Beasts. How familiar were the other shinobi?

She kicked off of the building she had been standing on and continued running. It was too late now – the fact that Kakashi hadn't been home this late at night was a stroke of good luck that would probably never come again so she couldn't waste the trip by being paranoid.

As Kana ran she unclipped the fastenings to her Anbu cloak with one hand, the other working at the snaps of her Akatsuki one, and slipped it off, slinging it over her shoulders so that it covered the conspicuous red and black clouds. When it was fastened to her liking, she stuffed the high collar underneath. The chances of being caught were slim to none, as she was already coming up on the hospital, but if she were caught, then Kana would easily mistaken for an Anbu member this way.

As long as the person that saw her wasn't in Anbu, that is.

Jumping down to the streets as to avoid being seen by the spotters located on both Hokage Rock and the office, Kana almost felt mildly disturbed at the lack of security after having seen how much work went into protecting the Kazekage's office. Even if Tsunade didn't carry a Tailed Beast, she was the leader of the village; not to mention her gambling issues that _must_ have put some sort of target on her back…

The kunoichi used the flicker technique to get to the door of the office, which was always left open for those that needed to turn in their report to whoever was staffing the mission room. Aside from the guards stationed on the roof of the office there was no other security that she could see, other than the two shinobi she didn't care to pay attention to in the mission room. Good.

She dashed up the stairs as quickly as she could, bolting down the hall with only the slightest sounds coming from her strapped boots as the carpet lining each hallway muffled her steps. It wasn't until Kana approached the Anbu Commander's office that she came to a stop, slightly out of breath, so she could think.

This was an issue with Anbu, so it made sense that if there had been a report done then it would be in his office… But, at the same time, she was investigating a disappearance. Black Ops were killed in action often enough for personal friendships to be discouraged between units, but when they _did_ go out, then their bodies were destroyed. Unko's body hadn't been destroyed, meaning a team wasn't able to find his body.

Kana knew Akino's and Pakkun's tracks well enough to know that the location of the fight had been found, which meant that someone would have had to file a report on missing Anbu. If it wasn't just a hunch of hers that the rest of Unko's squad had been kidnapped, then she wanted to know all of the details.

 _'So maybe it would be in the Hokage's office, instead…'_ She frowned and found herself wishing that finding the exact mission report she needed was a lot easier, considering the sun would be up in five hours.

Hoping that Tsunade kept up her trend of being irresponsible and sleeping in was one that stayed true today, Kana continued down the hall to the Hokage's office. The door didn't even budge when she tried the handle. Shit. A fuinjutsu. A total of fifteen people would know how to undo the seal: Lady Tsunade, Lord Homura, Lady Koharu, Lord Danzo, Commander and the ten units in the Hokage Guard Platoon.

No, sixteen; Shizune would be able to undo any seal or trap Tsunade planted.

She could break the door down with relative ease, but that would make a hell of a lot of noise and destroy her attempts at making this a stealth mission. There was no way Danzo would risk his ass to get her in here just because she had a bad feeling about a situation, either, and the other council members would think Kana was there to perform an assassination or something.

There was always the possibility of using a guard…

Her mind immediately went to two guards in particular, and her heart ached.

* * *

It probably took Kana longer than it should have to get to Raido's apartment, but it was hard to rush to your former lover's home knowing that you'd be attacking them. Kana would have gone to Genma's but he was too unpredictable, what with his random sleepovers with the chunin, on top of being called out for missions.

Still, when she had disabled the trap on his window and crawled through, Kana sensed that, again, the apartment's occupant was out. This time she couldn't find herself feeling relieved as she reactivated the window trap.

Being back in the apartment after nearly a year and a half of being away nearly sent the kunoichi to her knees. Kana could almost see the Christmas tree that she had decorated with Neji and Lee, and the stacks of laundry that always seemed to pile up because both of the shinobi had always been too busy to clean their clothes.

Fighting against the wave of emotions, she decided to wait in the bedroom. As much as she told herself that it was because it was the only room in the house that Raido wouldn't be able to immediately see when he got home, but Kana knew that it was so she had an excuse to go lie in bed.

That's exactly what she did. After pushing her mask off to the side and pulling her cloth mask down with her goggles so that they both were around her neck, the kunoichi slid over the duvet and curled up on the bed with her face buried into the pillow. It smelled of wood, and musk, and Raido, and, and…

A wave of longing crashed into her. How many nights had they spent in this bed together, just holding one another and talking about anything? How many hours of sleep went wasted as she waited for Raido to come home from a mission, too worried to rest? How many evenings did they spend together going over mission reports with papers scattered over the duvet and nightstands?

How many times had the words "I love you" been said here?

Kana gripped the pillow and sighed.

A part of her wanted Raido to come home soon so she could tear herself away from the heartbreakingly fond smell and feel of the bed, but another part wanted him to take his time so Kana could have more time to pretend like she was home for real.

* * *

When it came time for the sound of a key being inserted into the lock, Kana had smoothed out the blanket and properly repositioned the pillow. She moved to crouch in the farthest corner in Raido's room and was working on merging her dojutsu by the time he made it into his bedroom.

He had lost weight – not much, but enough for the kunoichi to easily see the difference when his black knee-length cloak had been shed. Raido's jersey hung a little looser from his shoulders than before, and his pants looked just a tad too big for his usually muscled frame. There were dark circles under exhausted-looking eyes, and he dropped to sit on the edge of his bed with a heavy sigh.

For a few long moments neither of them moved. Raido just stared at his feet, head cradled in his hands, while Kana watched from the shadows. It was obvious that he had just come home from an assassination mission and it only made her chest tighten to think that he had just gone through that kind of stress, only to come home to someone like her.

Eventually he began to strip from his dirty uniform, undoing the bindings that were wrapped around his ankles and shedding his pants with tired, lazy movements. Every time his gaze found its way near the corner that she was hiding in, Kana made sure to trick his mind into thinking there was something more interesting slightly to the side, or would use the Ishikigan to wipe herself from the image.

Kokuto was left lying on the bed when Raido stood up to start the shower, and she seriously considered cleaning it while he was in the bathroom. It had been a part of his coming-home ritual when she began to stay at his apartment more often, cleaning the blade, sheath and his uniform while he washed the smell of death away from his body. When he came out of the shower, they would lie down, maybe have sex, and Kana would hold Raido until he was relaxed enough to sleep.

Not being able to do that for him now hurt. Even if he wasn't a legendary shinobi like Kakashi or Guy, Raido was extraordinarily powerful and skilled in both hand-to-hand combat and kenjutsu. As much as she wanted to just slip back into their routine, just one last time, the kunoichi was going to need the element of surprise if she was going to overpower him.

Kana waited until he was changed into a clean set of clothes before rising from her crouched position, mentally preparing herself for the attack; Raido wasn't weak-willed or a novice shinobi like the Suna guard. When he leaned over the bed to pull back the covers, she sprang out of the corner and tackled him to the bed, using practiced fingers to pull out a line of ninja wire and deftly wrap it around his wrists. Kana quickly gathered chakra to the palms of her hand and tapped both of his thighs with the Nervous System Rupture Technique*.

"Shh, shh, I'm not going to hurt you," she cooed, keeping one hand firmly planted over Raido's mouth as she rolled him onto his back - she didn't need him waking the two chunin that were sleeping on the other side of the wall. His startled breathing was harsh and heavy, puffing out over her hand every second or so from his nose, and his dark eyes were wide in shock. "I'm not here to hurt you," Kana repeated as she brought her other hand up to cup his cheek as if that would somehow make things better, "I'm not going to hurt you, but I need your help. I'm really sorry, Raido."

He twitched once against the icy sensation of her dojutsu but didn't bother with a physical resistance. Despite her size, they both knew that she had effectively rendered him immobile. Confusion and shock still rang through his head as Kana did what she could to suppress his consciousness – whether it was intentional or not, Raido was doing a damn good job at keeping her out of his head. She could feel him pushing back, trying to figure out what was happening by reversing the effects of the jutsu, and throwing up a mental wall of his own.

 _'It's alright,'_ she thought, trying to make her tone comforting, _'You won't remember this. Just relax.'_

Raido grunted in protest and narrowed his eyes as a show of concentration. Conflicting feelings, his affection for her and his sense of duty for the village, warred in his mind as he tried to push back. Even with a layer of genjutsu the pair were locked in a mental battle, both pushing and pulling like two wild animals defending their territory while trying to simultaneously trying to take the others'. Kana hissed in discomfort and upped the Sharingan's genjutsu.

 _'I miss you so much.'_

The sound of Raido's sad, almost longing voice ringing in her head was enough to stun Kana, who all but gaped in response. She had expected "Why" and "What are you doing here" but not… Not _that_.

She should have known it was a distraction, because he had made one strong push against her and managed to reverse the effects of the jutsu so that he was the one pouring into her mind. Due to a total lack of experience, Raido was unskilled and tore through random memories and thoughts with an awkward clumsiness not too unlike Kana's own first attempts. Various scenes flashed in front of both of their eyes like a broken movie montage, with their respective emotions flooding in and out like violent waves.

This was bad. They were both going to pass out if he kept this up, so Kana gathered as much of her concentration as she could spare, feeling her eyes begin to bleed as the ache of the combined dojutsu began to make its presence known, and slammed up the mental block just like Danzo had trained her to do.

Raido looked stunned at the sudden shut-out and his eyes lost focus for a moment. The kunoichi took the opportunity to step up the genjutsu for a second time as she forcefully shoved his consciousness to the side.

 _'Fuck you,_ ' she hissed just as his impossibly dark eyes began to glaze over, _'That's_ not _going to work.'_

It was better that he thought she was angry – or, at least, that's what Kana told herself as the hurt that raced through his mind threatened to shatter what little of her heart seemed to be left. It was better this way.

A serene silence settled over Raido's consciousness as the last of his will had been pushed away, safely tucked into the very back of his mind like a distant reminder. His dazed expression told her that she had gone a little too aggressive with the genjutsu, but that seemed to have been the only way Kana could actually get him to submit.

With a sigh, she pressed her lips on his cheek in an apologetic kiss. Why did things turn out this way?

Kana climbed off of the bed and tapped his thighs again so that he could use them before using a chakra scalpel to slice through the ninja wire. It didn't take long for Raido to throw on a new uniform in carefully measured, robotic movements that hit the kunoichi square in the chest.

 _'I need to get into Lady Hokage's office. I need to undo the fuinjutsu,_ ' she thought, trying to keep her inner voice sounding steady; her thoughts rang back in her head in the sound of Raido's voice like a bizarre echo. Kana didn't even need to make up some story about the village's safety and put false emotions into his head – she had completely dominated him, and she felt like hell for it.

Her hatred for Danzo only seemed capable of growing.

The trek back to the Hokage's office was uneventful and quiet, leaving Kana only to think about why she was in the village in the first place. As they walked she vowed to flatten half of the forest that surrounded Konoha with the seal on her thigh if her hunch ended up being nothing more than her over thinking things.

Well, not really, because the chakra depletion would most likely kill her, but she would be pretty upset.

By the time Raido had unsealed the jutsu and opened the door Kana was fighting a splitting headache that was only emphasized by the steady streams of blood that trickled from the corners of her eyes. She would have finished the job on Raido, and just knocked him out, if he wasn't so damn _big_ that carrying him would require a clone or two.

She moved quickly through the office, tearing open drawers and rifling through different stacks of paper for anything relevant to her interests. The incident had only taken place a week ago, if Unko's body was anything to go by, so if there was any sort of an open investigation then it would have been opened very recently…

 _IA-00194_

There. She picked up a file that had been hidden beneath some sort of file going on about a bunch of shinobi coming down with the flu – most of them being medical-nin that worked the hospital – with 'Classified' stamped over the front like in the movies; except the movies didn't include more sealing jutsus.

Her frown deepened. On one hand she knew that she should be glad that she had found something like this, because it would have been too coincidental for something this restricted with the code for Investigation: Anbu to exist for another reason… Kana looked up at Raido, who was staring blankly at the floor, and dug around through his knowledge regarding the Hokage.

No dice, he didn't know a damn thing about the seals that kept special documents closed. That had been a long shot. Kana rubbed at her still-bleeding eyes as her headache worsened, sighing and sinking into the chair as her mind worked. Chances were, only Tsunade and Shizune could open the seal – that meant that the kunoichi was going to be shit out of luck unless some expert in fuinjutsu just magically appeared.

Danzo popped up in her mind and Kana's frown was beginning to resemble a polar opposite of White Zetsu's freakish smile. She already had the documents she needed so it wasn't as if she would be asking him to break into the Hokage's office this time around, but would he be willing to unseal the file so Kana could read it? Well, even if he was a spiteful asshole with a serious god complex, he _did_ care for the Leaf. Not only that but Danzo was technically an Anbu leader – would he be willing to put aside his pride if it meant saving Anbu soldiers?

If not, they could always just _blackmail_ him like they always did...

Sure. Why not.

With her decision in mind Kana pushed herself out of the chair with a groan, reaching out to grip the edge of the sturdy desk as she screwed her eyes shut against the spinning room. How long had she been using the Sharingan? Two hours? Long enough for her body to start angrily fighting against the foreign genes, apparently. She untied Unko's mask and hitai ate and set them both on the desk where the folder had been just moments before; he would want the Hyuga Clan to have those relics.

 _'Ugh, I'm gonna puke,'_ she thought glumly, gripping the file in a vice grip so she didn't drop it as the pair left the Hokage's office. Just as Raido sealed the door, footsteps reminded Kana that she had forgotten to activate her Kurogan when they left the apartment.

 _Stupid_.

"Rai? What are you doing here?" Genma looked confused but pleased to see his best friend, unaware of the small figure standing just behind him.

Shit – _shit_ – Raido was too far gone to manage conversation on his own. The kunoichi struggled to put words into his mouth as she worked on wiping out her image from the scene.

"I just got back and decided to turn in my mission before heading home," his voice was slightly off as he spouted the words that Kana was putting into his head, like some sort of computer program, "Taking a midnight stroll?"

Genma blinked at the unfamiliar sensation of the Ishikigan, not having encountered it before, and scratched the base of his skull in a subconscious attempt at relieving it, "On my way back from taking a piss," his eyes dropped to Raido's empty hand, "So where's the report? I can take it back for you – you look like hell, man."

Kana made Raido yawn for effect as she carefully, _very_ _slowly_ , rifled through Genma's recent memories in an attempt to get relevant information, "I already turned it in to," Kana felt the tokujo's unease at her presence and backed out a bit, "The other guy."

She would have smacked her forehead if it wouldn't have been audible – she had to pull out before getting a look at the other shinobi that had been working the desk, and that was the only thing that had come to mind.

That must have been the wrong answer, because Genma's normally warm gaze cooled as his eyes narrowed, taking in Raido's very unmission-like clean appearance, "Other guy?"

Shit.

"I didn't get a good look at who it was," Raido shrugged, "Look, I'm exhausted. See you later, Genma," he said just a little too quickly, stepping around his friend to walk down the hall.

"Hey, before you go, you still meeting us for drinks tonight?" Genma asked, eyes wary but the rest of his demeanor coming off as relaxed.

Kana all but rolled her eyes – he couldn't fool her _that_ easily. She had the tokujo turn around to give his friend a bewildered look. "We never set up plans for drinks. Quit being weird."

The sound of metal clacking against teeth came as Genma twitched his senbon, a steely expression slamming down over his face just as the kunoichi realized her blunder. He pulled out a kunai and looked around empty air surrounding Raido, searching.

"We _did_ set up drinking plans. And the 'Other guy' in the mission room," his eyebrows knitted, "Was Kotetsu, lady."

He had masked his plans with his own suspicion; Kana almost smiled at how clever the ruse was if she didn't know that half of the reason as to why she fell for it was because of the Sharingan's painful effects. She released the illusion and rubbed at her eyes again, "It's been a while, Gen."

Brown eyes dropped to the file she was carrying before narrowing, "What'cha got there?"

Now wasn't the time for this. Raido stepped in front of Kana and pulled a plain kunai from the holster on her left thigh, raising it while dropping into a defensive stance. "Take him home so he can sleep this off, or fight him," she hissed, "You're the smartest one in the group, but he's the _strongest_. Who do you think is gonna walk away?"

"You're full of shit," Genma spat, "You're right, I'm smart. Don't give me that c-" he dropped to his knees with a pained groan when Kana's gloved fist connected with his midsection, eyes wide as she jerked his head up so that their eyes met, "What-"

Kana didn't wait for him to finish, placing a genjutsu over him that was just strong enough to daze him so that she could get a firm grip on his consciousness. ' _Being smart isn't always a good thing,_ ' she thought sadly as she started clearing out their encounter. Instead of easing him into it like she had done with Raido, the kunoichi plundered through his head while keeping the genjutsu thick right from the get-go.

 _'I was alone,'_ she said commandingly as she began to reprogram his memories, _'I went to the bathroom and walked back to the mission room. I'm going to tell Kotetsu about the graffiti about Anko in the third stall to the left.'_

She released his jaw and Genma rose to his knees with a smirk, ' _Man, Ibiki's gonna be_ pissed _when he hears about that,_ ' he thought in a humored tone while strutting past, clicking his senbon happily at the prospect of being a gossipmongering hag.

Blood trickled out of Kana's nose as the two streams under each of her eyes began to converge into thin sheets. The Sharingan was going to give her an aneurysm if she kept this up for much longer, or something. It wasn't as if there was extensive research done on forcibly splicing eyeballs together with the intent of merging kekkei genkai, so she didn't have much of an idea on the specifics, but it didn't take much brain power to understand that using someone else's bloodline trait like this wasn't having a positive effect on Kana's body.

She needed to get Raido home.

Instead of walking calmly this time, the pair sprinted out of the office building and through the streets. Kana didn't even remember the journey by the time they made it back to the apartment, the only things on her mind being the skull-splitting pain she was feeling and the need for sleep. She vaguely remembered helping Raido into bed before erasing what she could from his mind. Thankfully, in his dazed state, he didn't actually have any sort of memories stored up from their time in the Hokage's office, and Kana only needed to replace the memories of her being in the bedroom with him.

Short lashes fluttered over closed eyelids while she watched him sleep for a few minutes, knowing she was part of the reason for his troubled rest. Raido was going to wake up feeling like he was having the hangover of a lifetime but, otherwise, he was going to be fine. A pale tattooed hand stroked the scarred side of his face, feeling the gentle ridges of her former lover's marred flesh.

"I'm sorry I put you through all of this," she whispered, "You've always deserved something better."

Kind, passionate, perfect Raido. Kana brushed the bangs that hung over his forehead away, ' _This is a much better goodbye than before,_ ' she thought to herself as she rose from the bed, eliciting a disappointed sigh from the sleeping man. _'I'll always cherish the moments we had together, even if I wasn't worthy of them.'_

With a flick of her hand and the uncomfortable twist that came with space-time ninjutsu, Kana soon found herself back in Kakashi's room. She snatched up her kunai from the nightstand it had been placed on and climbed out of the window. It was time to pay Danzo a visit.

* * *

She had been here.

Raido closed his eyes and inhaled the all-too-familiar scent of gardenias and green tea – she always smelled like flowers, even after being out on missions for weeks at a time. The smell was in the pillow he was laying on, and on the comforter, with the subtle smell of dirt and sweat that told him that she had been out in the wild for at least a week.

A familiar empty feeling in his chest began to make itself known as he pressed his face into the pillowcase, as if Raido could somehow summon her if he longed for it enough. He knew that he should report this to Lady Hokage immediately, but a part of him felt as if doing so would permanently bar Kana from coming back home. What if she was in danger, and this had been the only place she felt was safe enough to go to?

Then why would she leave?

 _'Because she's a traitor to the Hidden Leaf,'_ a dark voice said _, 'Let us not forgot that the reason she's gone is because she chose to join the Akatsuki with that Uchiha guy.'_

Itachi Uchiha… The guy that murdered his entire clan before joining the Akatsuki nearly eleven years ago. The empty feeling in his chest turned into twisting as Raido recalled the report that Shikaku and Kakashi filed jointly on her departure. No one had been injured other than Kakashi, who had taken a kunai to the leg, but apparently Kana had been displaying bizarre behavior in the month leading up to the night she left, including intense frustration and depression, sometimes lashing out at comrades.

His eyes screwed shut. Something must have happened to push her over the edge like that, and the thought both infuriated and saddened him. What could Danzo have possibly put Kana through for her to just _break_ like that? What could have happened that would have made her turn her back on the Leaf?

It was a question that had been nibbling away at his heart and mind for too long.

' _Taktaktak.'_

Raido furrowed his brow and sank lower into the sheets. Was he _really_ being called in for another mission less than twelve hours after being home?

' _Taktaktaktaktak'_

A weary groan rumbled through his chest as he realized that the messenger bird wasn't going to leave until he retrieved whatever scroll it was carrying. The tokujo's limbs felt as if they were made of lead as he somehow found the willpower to slide out of bed, his head throbbing painfully against his skull. While he crossed over to the window, Raido made a mental note to get some water and hoped that the migraine was just from being dehydrated.

"Gen?"

Genma clicked his senbon with a grim expression when he looked over his shoulder. He had been sitting on Raido's windowsill and knocking on the window with the back of his hand but, despite the casual position, everything about his demeanor was tense.

Tired-looking eyes closed as he stood up from the sill, "There's been a break-in at Hokage Tower. Lady Tsunade is calling in the platoon," he said thickly, clearly unsettled by the situation, "I know you just got in, but-"

"I'll be there in ten," Raido was already walking away from the window to get changed, throwing his nightshirt and sweatpants onto the foot of the bed before even getting to the dresser.

 _'Kitten… What did you_ do _?'_

* * *

 ** _Three days later..._**

Kana really didn't enjoy blackmailing people, but she'd be a liar if she said that it didn't sometimes come with its perks; even if those perks only made her anxiety soar.

She had been right – Unko's team had been kidnapped, but they weren't the first like she had initially believed. No, someone had taken a total of eight teams and Unko seemed to be the only shinobi that had managed to escape, if you could call bleeding out in the middle of a forest as opposed to being kidnapped an 'Escape.'

Now… What was Kana going to do about it?

The kunoichi sighed for the umpteenth time in the last three hours as she read over the information again. 31 shinobi had disappeared while on missions that had them crossing the western borders of the Land of Fire, each of them had team members that used kekkei genkai, or a hidan, and the rest of the shinobi had been extremely skilled, even for Anbu. There had been signs of struggle but little blood, and evidence of bodies being dragged away, so it was obvious that they were being taken alive. However, there had been no demand of ransom since the first unit, a Root squad that consisted of Fu, Torune and two others, was taken 92 days ago, which meant that this wasn't supposed to be some form of terrorism.

No, someone was _using_ these shinobi for something. Experiments?

Of course there was more than just one bastard playing mad scientist in the Shinobi World, but Kana's mind immediately went to one bastard in particular. It was a well-known fact that Orochimaru had several isolated hideouts scattered throughout the continent, with each one full of laboratories and victims of his abominable experiments, excluding the base in Kusa.

But which one would be holding the Anbu would be the big question. If the locations of their disappearances were of any hint then it was a base that hadn't been listed in his file when Kana had reviewed it a couple of years ago.

 _'It's possible that he's built a new one…'_

Both the Lands of Grass and Sound were out, considering they already housed hideouts. With Amegakure acting as the Akatsuki's main base Kana doubted that Orochimaru would keep one of his own in the Land of Rain, too. That left the Land of Rivers and Land of Waterfalls if she were to just focus on the countries directly bordering the Land of Fire, though she should probably consider the possibility of a base being located in the southeast portion of the Land of Earth, the eastern border of the Land of Wind and the land of Stone.

Actually, the Lands of Stone and Birds would put the base almost directly in the middle of Konoha, Iwa and the Sand. What if Anbu were being kidnapped from other villages, as well? Kana scowled at the paper she had been staring at and slammed the file shut just hard enough for some of the pages to skew. Why couldn't Orochimaru just be a normal villain that had one base? Why did he need to have one for every day of the goddamn week?

She tucked the folder into her cloak with an irritated sigh and pulled herself up from where she had been sitting against the trunk of a tree, half-heartedly brushing away the moist dirt that clung to her ass. A part of her really wished that Sasori and Deidara had waited a little while longer before acquiring the One Tails, so Kana had an excuse to infiltrate Suna and look for anything on Anbu mission reports. With things as they were, though, there was no way in Hell that she's be able to get in undetected; she was absolutely sure that the Kazekage's guards and the rest of the village were extremely vigilant in light of recent events.

Considering Kisame had yet to seal the Four Tails, she could head to the Hidden Rock under the pretense of acquiring information for him… Yeah, that could work. All Kana needed to do was convince him that it was time to make his move.

Now that she had some semblance of a plan, she raised her hand to form the Seal of Confrontation while reaching out to the mark on Itachi's shoulder and teleporting to just a few feet away-

To see a familiar blue ball of lightning being thrown directly in Itachi's direction.

Kana felt her heart stop beating.

 _'Too fast. Can't make a shield-'_

Without thinking, she focused her chakra again to teleport in front of her teammate.

The Lightning Blade screamed through the air. Kakashi's eyes widened in both a look of shock and horror in the split second he had to understand that his target had changed.

Pain that was both hot and cold tore through Kana's chest as lightning smashed through her sternum and parts of her right lung, demolishing multiple top ribs and connective tissue like a small grenade. The smaller arcs of blue that flickered in and out of the concentrated version of Chidori jolted through what the ball of lightning didn't touch, and ruptured more tissue and flesh as Kakashi's fist narrowly missed her spinal column.

From behind her, she could hear Itachi's breath hitch, though she couldn't tell if it was out of concern or surprise at her arrival; Kisame shouted something something but the sound of her own frantic pulse in her ears drowned most of it out.

Blood splashed over Kakashi's arm from where his hand had torn into her body, and more was trapped by Kana's mask when she coughed painfully. As her chest heaved with the movement it caused the jonin to be jostled from within her body, and most blood gushed out with an audible ' _squish_ '.

She reached up to grip his forearm just as the kunoichi heard a voice she barely recognized – of course, he was probably with a team. That made sense. Kana activated all three of her dojutsu and merged them together after somehow finding the willpower to drain what she could from Kakashi.

"I-Itachi…" she wheezed, feeling blood fill her right lung as she struggled to tell him that if he was going to use his pretty red eyes, now was the time to do it. Her fingers tightened around Kakashi's arm so he couldn't move.

For a few moments they only stood there and stared at each other, until Kana managed to summon enough mental energy to ignore the agony that was tearing through her body and force herself into the jonin's mind. He had his own Mangekyo activated and, even if he wasn't as skilled as Itachi, she could tell that they had been fighting for a while before she had even arrived. Itachi was most likely reaching his limit due to his relatively low chakra reserves, and was having a tough time trying to out-genjutsu Kakashi.

Thankfully, her Ishikigan provided enough of a distraction for him to overpower their former comrade, and a glazed look settled over Kakashi's eyes as he was trapped in the Tsukiyomi.

One of the cool perks about having a dojutsu that allowed you to infiltrate someone's mind was that you could watch a genjutsu's effects as a bystander – you could watch it happen without feeling the negative effects that came with it. Kana watched as a hundred Kakashi's were drowned and reverted back to normal like some hellish variant of water boarding.

What part of her wasn't intrigued by the lesson Itachi was inadvertently giving her, was feeling both pain and sorrow for the man they both used to call 'Senpai.'

It was heartbreaking.

Kana pulled out of his consciousness, knowing that she held a luxury that Itachi didn't have, and began to slowly, slowly, pull herself off of the arm that was still impaling her.

That plan was quickly ruined by Kakashi, who dropped to his knees just a heartbeat later, dragging the kunoichi with him as he lacked the presence of mind to pull himself out of her chest beforehand. A strangled noise was all Kana could manage when pieces of lung and gods knew what else were yanked out in the process, and she dropped to the side into Kisame, who had suddenly appeared and wrapped his arms around her waist before jumping backwards to another branch.

There was a slightly louder tinkling noise than normal as her healing chakra began to get to work to restore the now-collapsing lung. Kana heart felt as if it was trying to burst out of her chest when she saw some pink-haired girl jump over to Kakashi's side. She was saying something but the blood rushing through her ears muffled it.

Kisame released her body so that it sank into the branch before bounding away to join Itachi and Kana began to survey the situation – what was happening? Why were they in a fight with the Nine Tails and Kakashi? Why was Sai, an agent of Root, with a team of normal shinobi?

She didn't even realize that her dojutsu had deactivated until Kana noticed that the only pain in her body was radiating from the gaping hole in her chest. Shit, that hurt. Looking down at the blood that had spilled out over her chest and Kakashi's arm, there was a good chance that she was going to need blood; her body could heal itself and repair damage without much of a problem but producing blood was a whole nother story.

"You bastard! What did you do to Kakashi-sensei?!"

Kana looked up from the growing sternum she had been watching in a morbid curiosity to glare at the Nine Tails, who had both fists clenched by his side. There was a tension in Itachi's shoulders but, other than that, he just gave the kid a bored look from where he was muttering something to Kisame.

When he didn't respond, Naruto sucked his teeth angrily and crouched somewhat as if he was about to attack, "Dammit! Answer me!"

If she wasn't in so much pain she probably would have glared from behind her mask. Why was this kid so loud? Ignoring him for now, Kana looked over to Sai, who was just standing next to Naruto with a thoughtful frown; seriously what was he doing here?

"Naruto, no!"

Kakashi's barely-conscious warning came too late – his student had already lunged from his position on the tree branch. Chakra swirled in his hand like a blue typhoon as he released a rage-filled war cry.

' _Too slow_.' The kunoichi had plenty of time to step to drag herself up to her feet and teleport over to where Itachi was standing. With the worst of her wound healed and both the Sharingan and Ishikigan activated, Kana reached out to grip his wrist in an iron-like hold. It was painful as all hell, with blood pouring out of the still-open injury acting as proof of that, but Itachi came before her own comfort.

Horrified confusion quickly replaced the expression of determination he held just a few moments earlier when he watched his jutsu fade into nothingness, absorbed by the kunoichi that had a hole punched through her chest just moments earlier. That horror only grew as his momentum was used against him and he was thrown into the trunk of the tree with a loud ' _crunch'_ of wood cracking under the force of the blow.

Trapped by the tree that had been crushed into the shape of his body, Naruto coughed against the pain of what was probably a bruised or cracked rib and could only struggle against the hold of the wood. Further proving that he was the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, he watched in shock when a black barrier formed around them, thrown up just in case his teammates tried to intervene.

"B-but, the chidori…" Naruto gasped, watching the wound continue to close up, "How…?"

Kana's frown deepened, "You don't know a damn thing about the Mangekyo, and you can't tell the Lightning Blade from Chidori, and you expect to be the Leaf's leader?" she spat, feeling a pain-induced rage coming on that was only being fueled by his attitude, "You think that displays of recklessness like that will lead to you being Hokage?" Kana reached up to grip his throat in a show of power to counterbalance the immense pain she was still in.

Hateful eyes narrowed angrily as the genin scowled, "Just shut up! You don't know _anything_ -"

"But I _do_ , little fox," she purred, "I don't know how honest Kakashi's been with you, but we used to be _very_ close. He's told me all about how you plan on being Hokage when you're all grown up." Kana tightened the hold she had on his neck and began to drain some of his chakra, careful to avoid the Nine Tails', "Tell me, how exactly does someone become Hokage? By disobeying the orders of their team leader? By mastering two forms of ninjutsu that you recklessly and sloppily throw around, with no skill in any other area?"

The kunoichi heard the irritation in her voice as she dug through his memories, "You want to become Hokage so others respect you, but that isn't how it _works_. You become Hokage _because_ you're respected. Because the Hidden Leaf is most precious to you, and you would give even the life of your own _child_ if it meant the village's survival," she ripped Naruto from the tree, "Not because you're just some _brat_ that wants to be held on a _pedestal!_ "

"I've had enough of you!" the kid shouted, blue eyes flashing angrily with each word, "What gives you the right, huh?! All this talk about caring for the Leaf – what do you care?! You turned your _back_ on the village, and your comrades, to join… Join those _monsters_!"

Kana made a face; she was getting really tired of his screaming, "The Akatsuki wants to end the death and destruction caused by the Shinobi World. Does sacrificing the lives of ten people really make them monsters?" she asked coolly before jumping away from where Naruto was crouched on the branch, dropping the girl with pink hair was by his side next than an instant later to apply medical ninjutsu to his injured ribs. Whatever. Kana didn't really have an interest in killing him so she could do whatever she wanted.

"Naruto, you can't talk sense into her," Kakashi called from where he was still standing next to Sai, "She'll do _anything_ for Itachi – nothing you say will get through to her."

The kid wiped away the thin trickle of blood that had dribbled down his chin with a growl, "If that's the case, then I'll just _knock_ sense into her!"

Ugh, is this really what Kakashi had been putting up with over the last few years? What a presumptuous little shit. _'Because that worked so well with Sasuke, right?'_ she thought to herself, frowning when Itachi's eyes morphed into an all-too-familiar pinwheel; was he really going to use the Mangekyo _again_?

"This isn't a fight that any of us can win, so _shut up._ We need to pull back for now and regroup with Asuma and the others," the jonin pulled out a kunai as he spoke, looking less annoyed at his student's behavior and more fixated on the situation.

"You should listen to your teacher," Kisame agreed with a widening grin, "Even _I_ wouldn't be dumb enough to fight these two when they're together."

Kana sighed in relief when the last of her wound finally closed up and rubbed at the still-raw skin subconsciously, "So is anyone gonna tell me what's going on, or…?" Like why the hell the Niju Shotai - the group that was in charge of hunting the Akatsuki, according to what Danzo had told her the other day - was in the area, and why Danzo was sparing units for genin-level missions?

"While you were off on _vacation_ -"

 _'I had something important to take care of,'_ she glared at Kisame with the Ishikigan, who only smirked.

 _'Well while you were away, we decided to have another go at getting the Nine Tails,'_ he explained, almost purring at the idea of finally getting the jinchuriki.

Itachi's blasé expression turned into a frown, _'But we weren't anticipating another team being in the area,'_ he turned back to Kana, _'Do you think you can handle them?'_

He wasn't asking if she was physically capable of fending them off long enough to incapacitate Asuma's squad, he was asking if she was mentally capable of harming Kotetsu and Izumo.

"Hey… Why are they just staring at each other now?" Naruto asked while standing up next to Sakura. It took her that long to heal a couple of fractured ribs?

Sai, who had been silent this entire time, jumped over to where his comrades were gathered on a branch, "Her clan's primary kekkei genkai is like the Byakugan, without the added benefit of being able to see fast-moving objects at a slower pace," he explained slowly, as if talking to a child, "But there's a secondary one, as well. It lets her read and transmit thoughts -"

" _Sai_ , I don't tell all of _your_ secrets," Kana interrupted, more than a little bored with people struggling to both explain and grasp the concept of the body, mind and spirit theme that the Shimi Clan carries. _'I can buy you time.'_

Naruto's eyes flew open, "Wait a sec, Sai, you two _know_ each other?!"

Acting as the blonde's total opposite, the pink haired girl's eyes narrowed suspiciously in response, "More secrets?" she hissed.

Kana snorted, "Are you serious?" she undid the snaps keeping her Akatsuki cloak on and shrugged it off to reveal her Root jacket, "Give him a _break_ – I just used to be his captain-" her ponytail smacked into her mask as her head whipped around to look at Itachi.

Sweat had begun to beat on his forehead and lip, and his eyes had faded to their normal pearly black, twitching slightly. There was another uncomfortable flutter in his chest, this time associated with a cramping feeling. Because Kana hadn't disconnected the link between them and Kisame, he felt it as well and peered at the two curiously.

 _'We need to go,'_ she commanded. With her Kurogan activated, the three of them could see that Asuma's squad was less than a kilometer away, _'Worry about getting the kid later.'_

Kisame made a face, ' _And the other team?'_

 _'I told you – I'll buy you enough time to get away. You're too slow and Itachi's too weak to outrun anyone right now so just get some place safe and call me,'_ she allowed a sliver of her worry to trickle into the tone of her thoughts, hoping to convey the urgency Kana was feeling.

Izumo and Kotetsu were incredibly fast for chunin, and Asuma had near-Kage level skill with his chakra blades. While she didn't know the extent of Shikamaru's abilities, if they were anything like his father's then this was about to turn into an extremely difficult fight. With Itachi's heart palpitations and low chakra reserves not allowing him to properly use his Sharingan, he was only going to get in the way. Kisame wasn't going to be up to the fight, either. Not on his own.

She handed her cloaks to Itachi. They were too cumbersome for a fight like this.

Kisame took a step forward and placed a heavy hand on the top of her head with a smirk before he and his teammate turned and took off, her cloak in hand.

"Wait, where do you think you're going?!" Naruto jumped from the branch he was standing on, only to halt when Kana flickered in front of him, "Dammit, get outta my way!"

The kunoichi sighed and rubbed her temple; there was a growing ache in her head that wasn't being caused by an overuse of her dojutsu. Kakashi really must have the patience of a _saint_ …

Her eyes drifted over to where he was still sagged against a tree, his left eye squeezed shut and his skin looking abnormally pale. He must have been able to negate the absolute worst of the effects of the Tsukiyomi with his own Mangekyo, but he was still only barely clinging to consciousness by the thinnest of ropes.

Kana understood why he wanted to stay awake for his team, but Kakashi was only going to worsen his health by fighting it and, without thinking, she nimbly leaped over to his side to drop into a crouch. Exhausted-looking eyes flew open at her sudden approach but the jonin could only gasp and twitch in response. "Shh, just sleep," she whispered while pushing up his forehead protector.

There was a chakra point directly in the center of a person's forehead that you either had to know was there, or be able to see it, and was commonly used by medical-nin that were aware of it. "I understand that you're his student," Kana said to the pink-haired girl as she applied a small amount of chakra to the point, "But your duties as a medic-nin come first. If he gets hit by the Mangekyo like that again, then you need to make sure he falls unconscious."

Kakashi's eyes slid shut and he slumped against her body, eliciting a shocked gasp from his teammates; she ignored them and pushed him back so that he was sleeping against the tree instead.

"What the hell did you just-"

The kunoichi turned around and, with more force than necessary, slammed her fist into one whiskered cheek before Naruto could finish asking his question, "Oh my _god_ shut _up_ you are so fucking _annoying_!" she cried, feeling a sense of satisfaction when he crashed into another tree, "I'm trying to teach your comrade something so just sit the fuck down or I swear to the _gods_ I will fucking _snap your neck._ "

A dazed expression crossed the genin's face when his head violently struck the trunk, but it didn't look like he was seriously injured. It seemed like the kid was ridiculously tough, like most jinchuriki, so the most he'd get is a concussion.

"But… Why?" Sakura asked hesitantly, clearly unsure of what to make of the situation.

Kana shifted her weight to her other foot uncomfortably and stepped away from the sleeping man, "It doesn't matter. What matters is that you understand that your role as a med-nin is more important than his role as your teacher," she said sternly, scanning their surroundings. It didn't look like Madara or White Zetsu were lurking so the kunoichi turned to Sai.

He had rather pouty lips, she noticed as he turned them into a thoughtful frown, looking just as intrigued by the situation as he was when Kana tried to explain the concept of hugging to him. She wondered if maybe she should just take them on one-by-one and make them forget about what just happened, but then Asuma was barreling towards her like an enraged gorilla.

 _'Oh, shit,'_ Kana jumped out of the way of the shadow that had been snaking around a tree branch in her direction and threw up a shield just in time for the jonin to crash into her like a cannonball. The shield kept her from being damaged by the attack but the brute force of it threw her backwards. It took a fair amount of willpower to not allow the collision to temporarily stun her, and Kana gripped the edges of his flak jacket to use his weight as an anchor.

They fell together and crashed into a branch below in a tangle of limbs, Asuma's weight feeling like a thousand tons that forced all of the air out of her lungs on impact. Holy shit this guy was huge.

"There are two more!" she heard the pink-haired girl cry out, "They ran up ahead!"

 _Hell_ no. Kana rolled away from the trench knife that was aimed directly for her eye and kicked herself up from the branch just as it cut through the wood's surface and created a large crack that made her mildly nauseous. Kotetsu and Izumo passed overhead, with Izumo sparing a quick glance down at the pair. The anger in his normally warm brown eyes would have startled her if she hadn't been expecting it.

They didn't understand.

She jumped up to the branch just as Asuma swung at her, hoisting herself up over the branch and launching herself in the direction of the young chunin. They had already put a decent amount of distance between the group and themselves, but Kana's hands worked fast to form seals as she applied enough chakra to her feet to give her an extra boost.

Four black balls of chakra shot out of her outstretched hands just as they were pulled back to grab at a scroll hanging from her hip. Being the one with faster reflexes, Izumo reached out for Kotetsu to grab a fistful of his flak jacket and pull him back just in time for two trees to collapse in front of them; it wasn't something that was going to stop them completely but it gave Kana enough time to pull open a scroll and launch a kunai.

Kotetsu had a kunai blade out just as Kana appeared on top of the fallen tree trunk, swinging it in perfect synch with Izumo without a moment's hesitation; he was always a fierce fighter. Kana whipped out both Koiku and her tanto to parry the attacks with the mental note to pick up her kunai from the tree later.

"You don't deserve to use that sword," Izumo hissed when he was shoved back by the strength applied to the tanto. Kana chose not to answer and spun around to swap her weapons' positions, blocking Kotetsu's kunai blade with her tanto while swinging the full-sized katana down with the intention to slice into his hip.

He jumped away in time to save his skin, but she still managed to cut through the fabric of his thigh holster and leg wrappings, resulting in them falling down to the forest floor that no one was paying attention to. Kana ducked down from Izumo's jab and used a burst of chakra to propel herself out of range, narrowly dodging Shikamaru's shadow.

Shit. So three skilled bukijutsu users and one kid that paralyzed you – Kana understood the lineup now: You put all of the attention on the ones with short-ranged weapons, and you don't see the subtle black shadow slithering in your direction. Then, you're either sliced to bits or taken in for questioning; Shikaku definitely knew what he was doing when drawing out the Niju Shotai squads for Tsunade.

Any further thought on the matter came to a complete stop when a glowing blue trench knife whizzing by her ear reminded Kana that there were more than just three players in this fight. She couldn't just block the second trench blade with her tanto like she could the kunai blades, thanks to the chakra enveloping it being strong enough to cut through boulders, so the kunoichi had all of two seconds to throw up another shield and spin away.

At some point Naruto managed to get his bearings and pry himself out of the teenager-sized hole his body had made in the tree, and was charging up with what looked like about fifteen clones that were all shouting that maddeningly irritating war-cry. God, this kid was fucking annoying, and the kunoichi had half a mind to just kill him as she sheathed her blades.

Flicking the claw that rested in the band of her black ring, Kana sliced the pad of her thumb open while tearing away her glove with her teeth so that she could drag a line of blood over the tattoo there. A black sphere quickly surrounded the sixteen figures, many of which disappeared in a puff of smoke upon slamming into the barrier. The rest stopped in their tracks as Kana kept herself moving, twisting and dodging away from the weapons being thrust and swung at her body, while she formed the necessary hand seals.

"I told you to sit _down_ , kid!" she spat angrily when the series of hand signs came to an end with her palms sinking into the barrier, "Iron Maiden Jutsu."

Two dozen spikes burst forth from the walls of the barrier prison, each one impaling a clone or Naruto; Kana made sure that the ones that hit Naruto avoided any major arteries but would keep him from attacking. The pink-haired girl screamed – holy _shit_ her voice was piercing – and even Sai allowed a gasp to escape.

 _'So are you two too busy_ fucking _each other, or-'_

Kisame chuckled in his head, _'Almost there, little bird.'_

That wasn't helping the whole fucking bit, but whatever. Kana released the barrier and dove to the side to avoid the shadow needles that had suddenly jumped up from the ground – Shikamaru was either pissed, or reaching his limit.

The movement sent her straight into Asuma's path, though, and she took a humming chakra blade straight to the gut as he tried to punch through her body.

This day _sucked_.

A pained groan was the most the kunoichi could let out as he followed through the punch by pinning her to the tree, though the Yin Healing Would Destruction Jutsu kept him from blowing yet another hole into her torso. Kana formed the Seal of Confrontation to teleport over to the marked kunai still buried in the tree and almost stumbled off the edge of the branch when the twisting and pulling feeling worsened the wound. Kana had never teleported while injured, so at least she learned something from the fight.

Like how Asuma was way more of a beast than Kakashi was, and she should have definitely taken him up on those sparring offers.

The chunin split up and she pulled out her tanto again, crouching and letting the white chakra do its work while she worked out a plan. Seriously harming the two was not something she had an interest in, even if they looked at her with eyes filled with enough hatred that would make even Kisame squirm.

Kana understood, even if they didn't. She had hurt them.

But it still sent a horrible pang of guilt through her chest when she blocked Izumo's kunai blade and responded by driving her own kunai through his forearm. The metal was sharp enough to slice through cleanly and, when she pulled it out, Kana made sure that the kunai didn't cut too close to his artery.

"Izumo!" Kotetsu cried, immediately darting over to where his lover was stumbling back, bleeding arm cradled against his body and face contorted in an expression that conveyed his pain. He wrapped his arms around the slim chunin and pulled him away so that Asuma could charge in for another attack.

Off in the distance, maybe 200 meters away, Kana could see Shikamaru's shadow retreating as his shoulders trembled. Sweat poured down his face and his eyebrows were knitted together in an expression that spoke volumes of his exhaustion. She couldn't blame him, considering she had been constantly dancing around the inky blackness that had been slithering around her this entire time.

With Izumo and Shikamaru both down it was safe to assume that the squad was down for the count, though Team Kakashi was still hanging back. Naruto was still trapped inside of the barrier prison she had put up around him –

Kana swore and ducked under the trench knife that narrowly missed her shoulder, jumping back and performing a rather painful back handspring to get out of range. No time for thinking.

"Kisame, Itachi, where the fuck _are_ you?!" she hissed while re-opening the healed thumb on Raido's ring. She swiped the blood over her left hand's tattoo, dodging another violent punch that Kana was pretty sure would crush her skull if it hit her, and back flipped again to place the palm of her hand against the tree branch.

Black spheres formed around each member of the Leaf shinobi. Why she hadn't done this in the first place was beyond her, but Kana desperately needed Asuma to slow the hell down so she could tend to the internal bleeding that was the direct result of the jonin's punch. The force of his chakra-enhanced trench knife, his muscle and being pinned between those two and the tree had ruptured Kana's stomach and kidney, and a lung had been punctured by a broken rib.

"Sakura, Naruto, it would be best if you don't try to touch the barrier," Sai said coolly, still showing more interest in observing than jumping into the fray, "It's chakra in its purest form, and if you make any attempt to touch it, you will be burned."

"So, what, we just gotta sit here until she _kills_ us?!" Naruto's angry shout brought Kana's attention back over to him while she restored the last of the broken rib, and she noticed that his injuries had almost completely healed; jinchuriki really were amazing beings.

Sai shook his head, face still thoughtful, "I'll explain things later, but you need to calm down for now and trust me. Trying to break through that barrier will only make things worse for you."

 _'Come, Kana,'_ Itachi's voice was strained, but calm as he called her.

The kunoichi sheathed her tanto and jumped back over to where her kunai scroll had been dropped onto a branch so that she could seal the marked weapon back in. Kana would probably have to clean her blades tonight if she wanted them to stay in peak condition…

Having finished administering emergency first aid to Izumo, Kotetsu stood up from where he had been kneeling, "Why did you -"

"Sorry, Kotetsu, I've got something to handle," she cut him off, tucking her scroll into her belt and raising her hand for the seal.

* * *

 **Note** : *So you know that technique where Kabuto was all like "Slappy slappy!" in the big Sannin fight? I think that's what it was. Maybe. I don't know. I can't find the exact name so I just kinda wung it. Also, this was meant to be separated into two different chapters but I felt that the pacing in the first part was kind of lame. Then again, my pacing usually really sucks. So... Oh well.


	9. Chapter 9

When Tsunade started taking applications for the Niju Shotai, Izumo and Kotetsu had been the first to sign up. It had taken a fair amount of ass-kissing and promises to keep up with their usual slave duties to convince the hag to see things their way but, eventually, she caved and allowed them to join Asuma's team with Shikamaru.

It didn't take long for Raido to follow suit and it wasn't more than a week later that Aoba's application turned up in the stack that Izumo had been tasked with processing. Even if he didn't openly admit it, everyone knew that Aoba respected the hell out of Raido and still sometimes referred to him as 'Senpai' when he thought no one else was within earshot; it hadn't been much of a surprise to hear that he had put in the request to be put under his leadership.

They had all expected Genma to join, as well, but no matter how much time passed it seemed that he was going to stay out of the twenty platoons. It wasn't as if they could hold it against him – each of them had signed up for their own reasons, and expected that Genma had his own reason for not joining.

Kotetsu looked over at Izumo, who was sipping from his canteen with a thoughtful expression, eyes locked on the flame that flickered in the center of their small shared campsite. He had always loved his eyes – so warm and brown and beautiful, full of emotions that could take Kotetsu's breath away if he wasn't careful.

Sensing a familiar gaze, Izumo looked over to where his lover was seated just a couple of feet away. When their eyes met he gave a half-hearted smile that didn't reach his eyes, and Kotetsu felt his stomach sink at the sight.

Even if they were sociable people, they didn't really let people into their inner circle. They never needed to – they always had each other. Kotetsu always had Izumo, and he hadn't needed anyone else. Genma, Raido and Hayate had always had each other, and it wasn't until the two had taken a mission with Hayate five or six years prior that the two groups merged.

Hayate had been the glue that kept all of them together at first, and Kotetsu would always be thankful to him for that. When he had died, he worried that they would fall back into their separate groups without him. Instead, his death only seemed to bring the group together. A part of Kotetsu knew that the reason Genma had finally taken them up on their threesome request was because Izumo somewhat resembled Hayate, but he couldn't bring himself to mind too much. Genma had lost the love of his life, and no one else had known that but them.

But Raido had lost his love, and _everyone_ knew. That's why they joined. Izumo and Kotetsu joined the Niju Shotai because there was still a chance for Kana to be saved.

For _Raido_ to be saved.

Fuck it all if he didn't admit that they were angry, though.

Kotetsu didn't know why they had insisted on getting her to spend time with them all those years ago. The kunoichi had been very clear on how she had no interest on befriending them, but there was something about her that piqued Izumo's interest. Kotetsu had mostly agreed to it for his sake, really, he supposed. He had to agree that there had been something about her that was interesting, to say the least. Kana was strict and harsh in the way that she spoke to them, and the way she battled was the only time they had seen her exude any sort of emotion.

Maybe that's why they did it. They wanted to see _more_ of that emotion.

So they invited her into their small world, into their circle of precious people. Kotetsu and Genma both ended up trying to flirt with her as a sort of front, knowing that she wouldn't give two damns about returning their false feelings, but they hadn't expected Raido to be the one to actually fall for her. He never really came off as the type to be terribly attracted to anyone and, when he did show interest, the complex he had about his scars and his own reserved nature usually meant that things didn't last long. Maybe that was why he had waited so long to tell her.

So when they heard that Raido and Kana were an item, the chunin both agreed that letting her into their circle was something they didn't think they could ever come to regret. They thought that, the night that they had seen her hair turn white for the first time, everything was going to be perfect.

Apparently, Genma thought the same thing. To think that he had been willing to give up the hilt of Hayate's blade so Raido could have a custom sword made… The tokujo had loved Hayate more than _life itself_. That _meant_ something.

Then, not just three weeks after their first real Christmas together, she stabbed Raido and dropped off the radar.

They had seen her around the village a few times, but Kana had changed. Her hair was always black or, when she was with Guy's team, a dark grey, and it was in a ponytail instead of a braid. She started wearing goggles and a black mask like Kakashi's, and tattoos began appearing on her hands, arms and legs. Izumo had tried to talk to her once, when she didn't have her new cronies by her side, who all seemed to wear that black and red jacket, but Kana simply acted as if he just didn't exist.

It was as if she had been under some sort of spell.

Kotetsu had heard whispered stories of the extent of the Sharingan's abilities. Apparently there had been a member of the Uchiha that had mastered some sort of mind-control jutsu, and a part of him wanted to believe that they hadn't really been betrayed, and that was why Kana had left. The chances were slim, but it was all of the hope he could allow himself.

He just couldn't believe that the person that they had allowed into their world was so willing to leave them.

Looking away from Izumo, Kotetsu's eyes fell on the kids that had been assigned to Kakashi's squad. They weren't a part of the Niju Shotai like they were, but they had been on a mission to the Land of Noodles and happened upon the two Akatsuki members. Asuma's team had been sent out as backup as the team tailed them, but they weren't expecting to see Kana with them.

There was something that was beginning to bother him, though, about the team's lineup.

"Say, what's a member of Danzo's Foundation doing with regular shinobi?" he asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

The kid looked up with a rather blase expression, "It's not terribly uncommon for Anbu to temporarily partner with general ninja," he said rather slowly, "With the Leaf still somewhat shorthanded, we've been used as stand-ins more frequently as of late."

Kotetsu nodded with an understanding hum, eyes sinking to the fire, "So… Did you know her?"

"She was our platoon's leader," he answered in the same soft voice as before, "I didn't know her before then, but we all knew that Captain Yokai hated Lord Danzo."

Naruto looked up from the ration he had been eating, "Wait a sec, Sai… If she hated Danzo so much, then why did she join him?"

The Root member closed his eyes at the question in a solemn display, "I honestly can't say. Lord Danzo personally trained her every single day that she wasn't on a mission, so much so that sometimes one of us would have to carry her back to the barracks. For Lord Danzo to display _any_ interest in an agent's training is a rare occurrence, but it was as if he made her training one of his top priorities, even though she consistently defied him every chance she was given…" Sai opened his eyes to stare at the campfire with a sigh, "There are still so many things I do not know, even though she is my own sister."

The cool breeze that had been rolling through the threes came to a halt as everyone jerked to face Sai, whose eyes widened somewhat at the sudden rush of attention.

"Hold up," Naruto's demeanor had been somewhat placated after their scuffle with the Akatsuki but, at his comrade's admission, he was beginning to get the look in his eye that he had earlier, "You're saying… That the person we fought earlier – that was your _sister_?!"

Kotetsu watched Kakashi's exposed brow furrow in thought, "I've known her since she was a child - Kana doesn't _have_ any family."

"Wait, Kakashi-sensei, doesn't she at least have parents?" Sakura asked from where she was nibbling on a ration packet. Her sensei shook his head wordlessly without giving any explanation.

"Those born within the Shimi clan without the Kurogan are exiled," Sai explained, black eyes flitting from person to person, "But I was still born with the clan's affinity for art and, subsequently, art-style yang release techniques. When I had overheard her talking with Kakashi just before she left, about her name, which had been kept from the rest of Root, it occurred to me that it was possible we might be clan members…"

Izumo leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, "But how you jump from a potential clan member, to _siblings_ , is what I want to know." He set the canteen on the ground between his parted legs.

Sakura's face hardened at the accusing tone in the chunin's voice as she looked back to her teammate expectantly, who frowned in response and looked around warily. Kotetsu guessed that he was probably uncomfortable with revealing any more information to strangers, which he couldn't really blame him for even if he was the one to bring up the subject. If Kotetsu had to suddenly explain how he thought a traitor to the Leaf was a family member, he'd probably be a bit worried, too.

Sai brought a knee up to his chest as he met Izumo's gaze, "Even if it went against Root's teachings to look into our pasts, I found myself too curious to leave things alone and snuck into the clan's compound to find her family records-"

"Which was when you found your name?" Naruto cut in, looking intensely interested – the look really didn't suit him, Kotetsu noted. He looked constipated.

"I never learned my given name," Sai answered, "But she had a brother that was sent to the Hidden Leaf's orphanage in the same month as I, when her parents were killed."

With the way he spoke, Kotetsu couldn't help but see an almost painful resemblance between him and Kana - their facial features were strikingly similar, with the shapes of their eyes and lips, and their sickly-pale complexions. The more he mulled over the situation, the more he figured that maybe the kid wasn't too far from the mark.

It bothered the chunin a little – he felt as if this was the universe's way of making fun of him.

Shifting next to him, Izumo looked down at his bandaged arm with the same thoughtful expression he had earlier, "Then… Is the reason you didn't attack her because you think she's your sister?" he asked solemnly.

The question turned all eyes back onto Sai, who shook his head as his expression changed just in the slightest. The others probably couldn't see it but, with the time he had spent with Kana when she constantly deadpanned, Kotetsu had been able to see even the most subtle shift in a person's expression. The kid had looked almost sad before – mournful, even – but now he looked as if he was trying to process information.

"I stayed back because she wasn't trying to kill anyone," came the quiet response.

"Are you serious?! Look at that guy's arm!" Naruto flung an arm out to gesture at Izumo, who looked up from his bandages now that he had been pulled into the spotlight, "She stabbed right through him! And she turned my leg into Swiss cheese with that steel mare thing-"

Sakura rolled her eyes and punched the blonde on the shoulder, " _Iron Maiden_ , you idiot."

"That's exactly _how_ I know she wasn't trying to seriously injure us," Sai murmured.

Kakashi, who had remained relatively silent so far, nodded, "Kotetsu, Izumo, tell me. With the way you've seen her fight in the battlefield, did you notice anything different?"

For a few moments the chunin remained silent, only staring at each other with confused expressions that were practically mirrors of each other; a sudden itch caused Kotetsu to reach up and scratch through his spiky hair as his brain struggled to turn the gears to get the desired effect that Kakashi was looking for.

Eventually, though, Izumo's eyes widened and he gasped, "She wasn't using chakra."

Chakra? Kotetsu knitted his eyebrows and gave his lover a questioning look, but he was already turning back to face the rest of the group.

"When Kana fights, Naruto, she uses a special black chakra. It's a savage way of fighting, where she literally tears her opponents to pieces," Kakashi explained from where he was bundled up against the trunk of a tree. He had apparently been hit with the Mangekyo Sharingan and couldn't move much, so he had been sitting there all evening. "When I was still in Anbu, she almost killed _me_ with it – she _would_ have, if it hadn't been for Shikamaru's father showing up with the Third," he nodded over to where said chunin was snoring in his bedroll.

Naruto made a face, "But... She used it on me…"

"Because you pissed her off, kid," Kotetsu snapped. He didn't mean to come off as angry but, with the way things were turning out, he was getting confused. He hated being confused, so that meant that Kotetsu was beginning to turn that frustration into anger.

As if sensing his displeasure, one of Izumo's hands slipped over to rest on his lover's knees, squeezing gently. The man's affection was like a drug and damn it all if Kotetsu didn't admit that the knot in his lower back that had been bothering him didn't loosen up a little at the caring gesture. His eyes traveled to look at Izumo's profile; he loved this man so much.

Sakura's eyes widened as she began to fit what puzzle pieces together she could, "Both Izumo's and Naruto's wounds were deep, but clean, and didn't hit any arteries, even though every member of the Anbu Black Ops has the human body memorized as a requirement for official induction," she looked up to Kakashi, "When she rendered you unconscious, she could have killed all of us, couldn't she? But she only _scolded_ me for not knocking you out sooner so you could rest."

"Wait… Are you saying that she… Was _helping_ us? But, _why_?" Naruto asked, voice having returned to a much more acceptable level for the time of night.

"Saying that she was helping us is a bit of a _stretch_ , Naruto," Kakashi murmured as he sank into the tree trunk, "But I think it's safe to say that Kana was making a conscious effort to hold back but only using kenjutsu."

Sai hummed in agreement, "Anyone who has fought with her can attest to that, but there's something else that's been bothering me…" he frowned and looked back into the dwindling fire as he spoke, "I can't say I've spent much time with her, but, even so, I can't think of a time she's ever been slow enough to get injured."

Kotetsu dragged his eyes away from the beautiful chunin's face at the kid's observation with a start, "Hey, yeah, now that I think about it, didn't Raido say that she had been too fast for any of them to hit?"

In fact, both Anbu members had been stabbed and Raido had four broken ribs and a nasty concussion, from what he could remember from the mission report he had filed away. They had all been pretty roughed up, with the exception of Aoba, even though there were two other Anbu members on the temp squad.

"Kana… She hurt Rai pretty bad," Izumo murmured, as if reading Kotetsu's thoughts, "And she almost killed her former teammate."

"Wait a minute, I don't understand-"

"Naruto, _shut up_ and just _listen_ ," Sakura snapped as she punched him on the head, "You don't understand because we don't _know_ her, so let them talk instead of jumping in all of the time!"

Kakashi shifted beneath his blanket, "Kana is the type of person that makes friends easily once she lets them in, and she doesn't take those bonds lightly – though she'd never admit it," he peered over at Naruto, "In a sense, she's kind of like you in that regard."

Naruto's face scrunched up like a pug that had to take a shit, clearly wanting to ask questions but too afraid of the girl sitting next to him to voice them; he squirmed in his seat uncomfortably.

"Kakashi, do you think…"

The jonin nodded solemnly at Sai and shut his lone eye, "Yeah. Even if it wasn't a conscious effort… She wanted to be punished for hurting them."

Izumo stiffened and scooted across the log so that he was pressed against Kotetsu's side, the hand still on his knee twitching. "Ko…" he whispered, turning his face up so that he could see him. Izumo's eyes were wide with something that looked like an earnest worry.

As much as he wanted to wrap his arms around his lover and tell him that things were going to be alright, that was something that Kotetsu simply couldn't do. He couldn't instill some false hope into his lover based off of what was probably just a theory of the copy-nin's. Instead, he planted a kiss on Izumo's cheek and snaked his arm around his waist in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.

"The Niju Shotai's primary duty is to hunt down Akatsuki members and bring them in for questioning, preferably alive," Asuma dropped down from the branch he had been standing on now that his rounds were over, "If that's the case, Kakashi, do you think it's possible we could use her feelings against her? Form a squad to prey on those weaknesses?"

Kakashi sighed and cracked open an eye at his friend's approach, stretching his arms out in front of him. "There are three people that Kana loves more than anything else, and Itachi Uchiha is one of them," he looked over at his students, "You could say that she's in a similar situation as Haku, from the first mission we took to the Land of Waves. I'm afraid that, as long as Itachi is alive, not even the other two would be able to convince her to come peacefully."

Sakura crumpled up the ration packet she had finished off and stuffed it into her hip pouch, "What if we were to capture Itachi, then?"

"Yeah! Surely if we captured him, she'd come running in no time!" Naruto exclaimed, eliciting a slap from his teammate when half of the party flinched at the sudden outburst.

From his bedroll, Shikamaru suddenly groaned and rolled onto his back to glare angrily at the chatting group of people. "Weren't _you_ the one that said she took a Lightning Blade straight through the chest for the guy, so he could catch Kakashi in the Tsukiyomi?" he hissed, "Those two took out Kakashi in just a few _seconds_ – what makes you think that guys like _us_ can capture _him_ just like that when the other guy didn't even _jump into the fight_? Quit being a _moron_ and go to _sleep_ , Naruto!"

Kotetsu shot the kid a look that went unnoticed – man, Shikamaru turned into a real jackass when he was going through chakra depletion. Still, he had a point. As long as those two were together there was no way that any of them would be able to even stand a chance. Izumo and Kotetsu joined the Niju Shotai in some blind hope that they'd be able to bring Kana home, for Raido's sake. They had all been hurt by her abandoning them after she joined Root, but something inside of Raido broke when she left the village.

He realized that there was a chance that they were too in over their heads for work like this, even with Asuma leading them. If anything happened to Izumo…

Kotetsu hid his face in the smaller chunin's neck in an attempt to hide whatever glum expression he knew he was wearing. Now wasn't the time to think things like that.

"Ko?" Izumo whispered in his ear, "Are you okay?"

Kotetsu sighed and kissed his lover's clothed neck.

He wouldn't let anything happen to this man.

* * *

 **Note** : Mkay not gonna lie, I just really want Sai to have a family lol. I didn't really plan for that at all - I just realized that, with the way I had drawn and colored her, she looked kinda like a genderbent Sai. But I figured it could play in later. I also thought would be fun to include some of the other side of the story, as opposed to just looking through Kana's eyes. That being said, I really don't trust myself with properly portraying their thought processes so this isn't gonna be a normal thing.


	10. Chapter 10

_Badum, badum, badumdum._

Kana pulled her hand away from Itachi's chest. Over the last three weeks she had managed to get his heart rate under control so that he didn't experience any more uncomfortable palpitations, but the muscle still seemed to flutter about once every couple of hours.

Rolling onto her back, she watched as a fluffy cloud sluggishly moved through the sky to cover the half-moon that gleamed down at them. It was a dark grey, barely distinguishable against the black sky, but as it passed over the moon it became illuminated by the white light reflected by the moon.

It was getting warmer so the kunoichi didn't need to throw a blanket over her body tonight when she was wearing her cloak. Konan had made a small fuss over the trio needing three new cloaks in the last few months, but it wasn't as if Kana had much of a _choice_. Hell, Kakashi had torn through her only jumpsuit, front and back, and the lightning from his attack had singed the hell out of her Root jacket and hair.

She reached up to touch the ends of her now chest-length hair with a dry smirk; she _did_ say she needed a haircut…

Though Kana never complained about needing a new outfit, that much was for certain. She liked her jumpsuit, that was why she had worn it for almost her entire shinobi career – Guy had designed it for her, and it was comfortable. Now she was wearing one of Itachi's two spare shirts, and… _Pants_.

Gods, did she hate pants. They clung in all of the wrong places, the fabric got in the way of her kicks and why _anyone_ would wear them was just absolutely beyond her. Thankfully she had found pants that were tight and stretchy enough to basically act as a second skin, but they were still _pants_.

"Quit fussing," Itachi murmured suddenly, snapping her out of her thoughts.

Kana turned her head to see that he had woken up and cracked an eye open at her. It wasn't until his eyes flitted down and then back up to her face that she realized that she had been fiddling with the waistband of her pants; she grinned sheepishly from behind her mask and tugged the hem of his shirt back down to cover her hips. "Sorry."

Itachi rolled onto his side, ignoring the disapproving huff that came from Kana, and reached out with two fingers to poke at her masked forehead.

"You're supposed to poke, _then_ scold," she pouted, swatting the hand away; Itachi twisted his hand around in response and pulled hers into a gentle hold.

"I don't recall there ever being an exact _method_ , but I'll be sure to keep that in mind," he chuckled as he pinched her fingertips. Itachi's eyes crinkled a little at the edges with a soft smile, "Kisame's not holding you hostage tonight?"

She made a face, "He always ends up just laying on top of me – do you know what that's _like_? He weighs like two-hundred pounds!"

Itachi laughed again and his other hand came up to cover his face instinctively, "No, I can't say that I do," he said between his snickering.

"Well he sounds like goddamn chainsaw with the way that he snores, and I feel like he's trying to just suck me into his body. It's ridiculous," Kana turned her head back up to the sky to see that the cloud had finally passed over the moon, "Seriously, I thought Raido was an intense cuddler, but Kisame _really_ takes the cake-"

Her words came to an screeching stop when the kunoichi realized what she just said. Looking over at Itachi, she was glad that she still wore the mask to hide her features – he looked just as shocked as Kana was.

That look of shock quickly melted back into a tender smile, and he squeezed her fingertips again, "What was he like?"

He was trying to ease the tension by getting her to talk about him; she understood that he probably didn't actually care so much about Raido as much as he did easing her mind. After a few moments of hesitation she released a heavy sigh and closed her eyes as a breeze rolled over the bedrolls they had put together.

"He… He was strong, and kind, and always calm no matter what. Some people thought of him as a strict hardass, but that was just because he took his responsibilities as a shinobi seriously…" Kana's free hand returned to the ends of her hair, "He was the only person that never seemed to fuss over my hair, and eyes. I think it was because I never bothered him about his scars."

Itachi raised an eyebrow, "Scars?"

Nodding, Kana's hand left her hair to rest over her stomach, "He took a fire jutsu to the chest when he was younger and the scars are pretty rough. The ones on the side of his face aren't so bad, but his chest and shoulder are discolored and a lot deeper," she smiled fondly at the reminder of the night Raido had shown her his body, "He was always self conscious about them, and kept them covered, but I loved Rai's scars. And how his bangs kind of flopped over his forehead when he wasn't wearing his headband… And how he always smelled like wood, from the dresser he kept his clothes in, and how he was always so warm, no matter how cold it was outside…"

Hot tears pricked at her eyes as she spoke but Kana didn't let them spread like they normally did – it was high time she stopped crying over this. "He had a real sweet tooth, too, you know? He liked spicy foods, and dark beer, but he'd always be the one that ate all of the cookies at the jonin parties," her voice struggled to get through the lump in her throat, "Our friends would always tease him about it, saying that it was because he was so sweet. It was a joke, but it was… It was true," the last word came out in a whisper, and Kana found herself fiddling with the waistband of her pants again.

"He sounds resplendent," Itachi said warmly as he shuffled a little beneath his blanket so that his free hand was pillowing his head, "Did the kids like him?"

The kids – when was the last time she had heard anyone else refer to them like that? Kana smiled fondly and nodded, "Yeah, Neji really enjoyed being around all of them, even if he wouldn't admit it outright… He's still really reserved but he's gotten a lot better, you know…" The kunoichi's smile expanded a little as she spoke, and the lump in her throat eased, "He's grown up so much, Tachi. He's gotten so tall, and he's so beautiful, and he's so _wise_ and _confident_ … He's a jonin, now, you know. He wanted to be in Anbu before I was transferred to Root…"

A quiet sob finally made its way up Kana's throat as warm tears spilled over against her will. The day Neji had expressed an interest in joining Anbu was the day he admitted that he had wanted to catch up to her as a successful shinobi, so they could take missions together. It had made Kana's heart feel so overfull that she had broken down right there on the spot.

"Lee… I know you never met him, but I know you would have liked him," she continued, "He probably would have worshipped you – gods knew he respected the hell out of the others… He's grown up a lot, too, in the last few years. I mean, physically, he hasn't really changed much, but he's become _so_ powerful – he's only sixteen, but he's almost at Guy's level…" Kana trailed off with a sniff, still smiling up at the next cloud that was passing over the moon.

Truth be told, she wasn't sad when she thought about them. It wasn't like Raido and Guy, where she felt a ton of guilt just drop down onto her chest every time their names came up – no, Kana was just reminded of just how much she loved those two, and how outstandingly proud she was of them. As much as she missed them, and as much as she'd give just to be able to kiss them on the cheek just like she always had, she just truly and honestly was only reminded of how warm they made her feel.

"You would have made a remarkable mother," Itachi murmured, tender smile turning just a little sad, "I've never seen anyone love someone else's children like you do."

Kana quit fiddling with her pants and turned to make a face at the man lying next to her, "As attached as I was to shinobi life? There'd be no way in _hell_ -" A familiar chakra presence suddenly appeared and she looked over her shoulder to see Kisame walking up for the end of his watch shift.

He greeted the pair with that shit-eating grin he always seemed to wear and scratched at the back of his neck, "Tell me, what's the point of me taking watch when you two are just going to lay around and gossip like a couple of schoolgirls?" he asked as he unceremoniously dropped onto his bedroll.

When Kisame reached out to pull her over, Kana grabbed a kunai out of her leg holster and stabbed it through his hand to drive it into the ground, a clear sign that she was going to be staying _right_ where she was. He swore under his breath and pulled the kunai out of his hand with a hiss and shot Kana a look that was both amused and annoyed. "You know, I'm beginning to think you don't _like_ me very much anymore," he purred while wiping the blood from the now-healed wound onto his cloak, "All that talk about kids got you wound up, little bird?"

"Piss off, Kisame," she snapped, pulling herself up into a sitting position. She wiped the blood off on the grass and slid the kunai back into her holster before bringing her hands up to snap the cloak closed - or, as closed as it could get in its current state.

Next to her, Itachi sighed audibly and slid his eyes shut as if doing so would make the shark man go away, "Kisame…"

The Mist-nin's eyes almost seemed to glitter with what was probably a rising wave of mischievousness, and those eyes followed Kana as she pulled herself up and slung her swords over her shoulder. When Kakashi burned her Root jacket, he had completely wrecked the built-in holsters that carried her sword sheaths, so Kana had to improvise and get this canvas strap thing that crossed over her chest uncomfortably.

As much as she tried to adjust it, the damn thing just would _not_ sit right and, after a minute of fussing, she groaned and looked over to Itachi with a pout he couldn't see.

"Next time Pain gives you a bounty, tell him we want it in a main village," she hissed, irritated with both the discomfort of her new outfit and Kisame, "I can't keep wearing this shit."

"What, _clothes_?" Kisame laughed.

Kana's eyes narrowed and, not one to play nice, threw out a closed fist that connected with his cheekbone fast enough for the subsequent fracturing to be audible, "Dammit, Kisame, shut up! What I wore before was a matter of _comfort_ and _practicality_ ," she spat, "This is bulky, and uncomfortable, and everything just feels _wrong_!"

The man grabbed the second fist that came flying towards him and used her temporary imbalance to tug her down to her knees with a smirk, "Oh, I wasn't complaining," he purred as he was shoved back onto his back, "I liked your getup-," Kisame flipped their bodies over, " - showed all of that pretty milky _skin_ you-"

" _Kisame_. Do not be lewd." Itachi's voice was low, but carried enough of his irritation for both of the shinobi to cease their wrestling match and sit back on their heels. Kisame was still grinning, but it was much more of a curious expression than the impish one he typically wore when he was trying to tease the kunoichi he had been pinning down just a few moments earlier.

Kana brushed off of the dirt on her bare hands, both gloves now having been lost or torn by this point, and kicked the Kiri shinobi back so that she could stand up again. "I'm taking watch. I'll wake you up when it's time to go," she muttered as she readjusted her swords.

Irritation spiked through her system again when rustling coming from behind was soon replaced by the sound of heavy footsteps. Having learned months ago that there was no point in trying to tell Kisame what to do, the kunoichi decided that she'd just run away from him; Kana pulled a scroll out from her belt and summoned a kunai.

"Oh, no you don't, little bird," he said quietly, voice teasing, "I know you're not going on watch."

A twig snapped beneath her boot, and she froze.

It didn't take long for Kisame to close the distance between them; she could feel the warmth of his body radiating off of him as he stood behind her. "That's right. Don't think I didn't take a looksie into that file you've had stashed away. I've noticed how you've been trying to push us west," he whispered.

"I'm not a part of your team – I can do whatever I want," she hissed, jerking away from the hand Kisame tried to place on her shoulder. Kana threw a kunai up to the tree branches and rose her hand to form the Seal of Confrontation, but the man's still-outstretched hand quickly grabbed it in an iron grip so that her fist was held shut.

"While that sentence is _half_ -wrong, I'm not here to tell you that you shouldn't go," Kisame used his grip on her hand to tug her back so that Kana's shoulders touched his chest, and his other hand came up to rest on the top of her head.

Each attempt at trying to squirm or tear herself away only resulted in the man's grip growing tighter, to the point of it being painful, so the kunoichi immediately released a resigned sigh and bit into her lip. "Then what do you _want_ , Kisame?" she said dejectedly.

The hand on her head tugged it back so that Kana was looking upwards into his face through the slits in her mask. Kisame was the type of man that could be read like a book, and the amusement he was feeling over having figured out her plans was written all over his face; he was getting a real kick out of this.

"I want you to wait," his fingers gripped her hair as he spoke, "Don't pretend you aren't aware of how closely the Zetsu have been watching you lately. Your little field trip last month has gotten you a lot of attention from Pain."

A quick burst of chakra pushed Kisame away fast enough that the force of the surprise caused him to loosen his hold on her. Kana took the opportunity to teleport up to the kunai, yanking it out of the bark and holding it loosely with the tips of her fingers in case she needed to throw it again, "The fuck do you _care_? Look, if something goes wrong then I'll make sure to tell Pain that you weren't involved. Because you're _not_. So just leave-"

In a flash of blue and black Kisame was on the branch next to Kana, who immediately threw the kunai to teleport to another branch.

"What the hell?!" she cried as she struggled to regain her balance, having been thrown off by the sudden display of speed. That was, like, _Guy_ fast.

He only grinned and jumped over to her with the same level of speed as before, pearly-white teeth flashing in the moonlight as his smirk widened when Kana struggled to turn away without falling on her ass. When the kunai went flying again Kisame followed in pursuit, just a few meters behind the kunoichi when she teleported over to it, grabbing it while still in mid-air and throwing it further through the forest.

Kana applied a bit too much chakra to her feet when she jumped off of a branch after missing her kunai by a foot or so, and the wood crunched beneath her foot audibly as it cracked in half. She'd probably be concerned about her flustered state if the blue man chasing her wasn't hot on her heels, so she ignored it and launched the kunai harder than before in an attempt to put some distance between them.

"Dammit, Kisame!" the kunoichi dropped down to the ground and quickly backpedaled while hoping that inertia would keep Kisame plowing forward, "I _get_ it – you're _bored_ – but I don't feel like _doing_ this right now!"

Defying all laws of physics regarding mass and movement, the man was able to come to an immediate stop and turn on his heel before kicking off of the tree to propel himself directly to where Kana was standing. Instead of diving out of the way, she fell down onto her back and kicked her legs out so that they connected with the center of Kisame's chest, using his momentum against him to push him over her head.

Of course he took the motion in stride and regained his footing, but it gave the kunoichi enough time to throw her kunai off to the side. It didn't give her enough to form the seal, though, and Kisame grappled her into the dirt once she had picked herself up off of the ground.

"Say you'll wait," he growled as she coughed.

Kana wordlessly teleported to the kunai, slamming painfully into a tree root from the force of half-assing the jutsu. She grunted painfully and reached back for Kioku, "What the fuck makes you think you can just make me do what you want?!" she hissed while jumping to her feet and spinning away from Kisame's attempt at tackling her, "The sleeping thing, the random attacks so someone will _play_ with you – the _bite_?! _Fuck_ you!"

Instead of running when he charged at her, she unsheathed Kioku and wrapped it in a second blade of chakra, just like she had copied from Asuma, and used it to cut into Kisame's thigh. It must not have been what he was expecting, so the man only narrowly missed having his entire leg being severed, instead only having the majority of the muscle in his upper leg sliced away.

Blood splashed down his calf and his face contorted with the pain but Kisame didn't stop his movements, catching Kana by surprise and tackling her to the ground. He grabbed both of her hands to pin them over her head in what she assumed was to keep her from teleporting, and the weight of his body pressed Kana into the slightly damp ground prevented her from being able to squirm away or roll out of reach.

The pained expression he wore began to melt back into his trademark smirk as the subtle sounds of regrowing flesh came from his leg, "Now that you won't be hopping around, little bird, you're going to promise me that you're not going to go running off just yet," he purred.

Panic began to wrap around her gut like a thin, cold wire, but all Kana could manage was to wriggle uselessly beneath him and build up chakra for another body blast-

Only to realize that Samehada had sapped most of it.

"Kisame," she said in what was supposed to be a low voice, but came out just a little too high, "Let go."

The sudden change in tone only seemed to feed Kisame's amusement, because his eyes flashed as his grip tightened, "That doesn't sound like ' _Yes, Kisame, I'll wait,_ '" he purred.

In an attempt at getting enough chakra to push him away, to do anything, the kunoichi absorbed what she could from him. Her plan was quickly foiled when Kisame only re-absorbed it with a malicious chuckle, and fear began to mix into the rising panic. Kana tugged on her hands harder this time as her chest tightened, "Let me _go_!"

How far had they run? Were they close enough to the camp that Itachi could hear her scream through the dense forest? Would Kisame be able to absorb the chakra from Orochimaru's curse mark if she activated it?

" _Say_ it," his expression changed subtly, just barely for her to notice, at the desperation in Kana's voice, but he didn't remove his hands from where they were digging hers into the dirt by the wrist.

The wire around her gut tightened as her breathing began to come in short, shallow bursts, and, after a few agonizingly long moments of useless struggling, that only resulted in maybe a surface scratch along the inside of Kisame's palm, she sank her teeth into her lip. Kana could taste the metallic tang of blood from the puncture, but was only very vaguely aware of it as she turned her head with her eyes screwed shut in defeat.

"I'll… I'll stay," she whispered shakily, " _Please_ …"

Almost immediately the hands on the woman's wrists were gone, along with the weight of Kisame's body, as he pushed himself up, "There, was that so hard?"

Kana didn't respond. Rolling onto her side to grab the katana that had been dropped when she was tackled to the ground, the kunoichi half-slid half-crawled away from the Mist-nin. She didn't even realize that her shoulders were trembling until the warm flood of her chakra being returned by Samehada relaxed some of the muscles that had tensed.

She pushed herself up onto still-shaky legs with the aid of a nearby tree trunk and leaned against it, still holding Kioku in her hand as if it could somehow shield her from Kisame, who suddenly looked less amused and more concerned.

"Little bird?" he asked as the mirth emptied out from his white eyes.

In an attempt at coming off as fully composed, Kana pushed herself off of the tree, swaying slightly, and turned her back to begin walking. "Go rest. I'll wake you two up when it's time to leave," she said stiffly, knowing that her voice still wavered slightly.

The hand that she had been using to brush away the dirt with was soon grabbed by a rough hand that was nearly two and a half sizes larger. Something that sounded like a strangled cry tore its way through the kunoichi's throat when she jerked her hand away, but she had used more force than necessary, having been expecting Kisame's usual vice grip, and tripped on a tree root.

"Don't touch me!" Kana snapped when he reached out to help her back up, "You got what you wanted – just go back, already!"

There was a moment's hesitation where Kisame's hand hovered between them, as if he wasn't sure if he wanted to try to reach out again, but he soon shrugged and turned to head back to the small camp that they had made. "Whatever you say."

The wire finally uncoiled itself from her stomach when Kana couldn't sense his chakra signature anymore. With a long, heavy sigh to get her breathing back under control she jumped up into the tree and activated her Kurogan to begin her ten-minute cycle.

She sheathed Kioku and looked down at her hands, curling and uncurling her fingers as if reassuring herself that she wasn't being pinned down anymore. The first time Raido had held her down like that, Kana almost snapped his wrists back out of instinct – the only thing that kept her from doing so was his reflexes and the underlying understanding that he hadn't done it intentionally. Kisame, though… He got some sick sense of satisfaction from watching people get angry and panic.

Humiliation-fed anger quickly replaced her uneasiness. That fucking prick was three for three on getting what he wanted from Kana by getting under her skin, and he had been hiding just how _fast_ he really was this entire time.

A huge part of her wanted to jump right off of the branch and try out that Rasengan she had copied from the Nine-Tails – to just blow a big hole right through Kisame's midsection – but she felt that doing so would only give him the satisfaction of having riled her up to that point. So, instead, Kana focused her attention on pulling her hair out of its ponytail to pick out the clumps of forest floor that had stuck into it. It didn't do much for removing the humiliation she felt over what just happened, but plucking away dried leaves and moist grass gave Kana enough time to calm down and use all that fancy shinobi training that taught self-control and junk.

Man, Kotetsu and the others really turned her into an impulsive brat, didn't they?

She frowned at the thought. Kana _really_ hoped that Izumo was okay after being stabbed like that – the medic assigned to Kakashi's squad was young, but didn't come off as incompetent, so surely he wouldn't get something like an infection, right? Maybe she shouldn't have been so rough with him…

 _'Thinking like that isn't going to get you anywhere,'_ she chastised herself quietly while nimble fingers wove through black tresses. Kana decided to keep her hair in a braid for the night, if only for old time's sake, and felt a knot in her back ease up. The braid had always been something she had done for Neji, because he liked the way that hair looked when it was layered together like that, but when Danzo had recruited her, it was the first thing she had let go. Sort of like the first step to distancing herself from the village, even if Kana still would make tiny braids into the ponytail like a rebellion.

Now that she thought about it, tonight had been the first time she had ever really talked about him and the others – it felt almost liberating, she noticed. Like some small weight had been lifted off of Kana's chest. Of course she still longed for them, and for home, but it didn't feel quite as painful as before.

With a quick flash of her Kurogan to make sure no one was around, she pushed her Anbu mask to the side and pulled her goggles down to enjoy the pleasantly balmy weather against her skin, something that was now a luxury the kunoichi hardly ever allowed herself.

 _'Maybe it's time to lose this thing,'_ Kana thought as she looked up at the dark sky, which was mostly blocked out by thick grey clouds. With tattoos and hair like hers, she didn't need her 'Weird chakra signature'- as Genma so often put it- to make her easy to identify. It was why the kunoichi never used henge; there was simply no point. The mask, she had already admitted to herself, was more of an emotional barrier than anything else.

Did she really need it anymore? With things resolved with Itachi, for the most part, what was she hiding from?

Kana sighed and rubbed at her bare chin absentmindedly, feeling the scar left just next to her ear that served as a permanent reminder of her failure to the teammates she lost on that mission – the mission that she almost didn't come back from.

The reminder brought her thoughts back to the file still tucked away in her cloak. For the last few years Kana nearly tortured herself with wondering why the hell Orochimaru had marked her, and why Kabuto had been so insistent on saving her life. With the proof of Anbu being kidnapped in her possession she wondered if her questions could be answered by the information in the report.

Though, for every answered question it seemed that only more popped up – such as, if Orochimaru had been planning to do this back then, why did he and Kabuto take her back to the Leaf? Why not just take her back to their laboratory? Did he mark the others? Why only target those with kekkei genkai and hidens? The kekkei genkai made sense, if Danzo's insane dojutsu-splicing was anything to go by, but secret jutsu? What would Orochimaru want with those?

The kunoichi bit her lip thoughtfully. Dimly, she was aware of how she was trying to rationalize the actions of a man that was clearly insane, that he could just be working impulsively, but she couldn't help but try to make sense of the situation.

Wait…

Kana's mind flashed back to something that she had been overlooking this entire time: Sasuke. Orochumaru had Sasuke, who had the Sharingan. The Sharingan that would allow him to copy any jutsu he came across. Including hidens.

What if he was planning to splice bloodline traits into Sasuke? It actually would make sense – the sannin specifically wanted the Uchiha because his body was strong enough to withstand Sage Mode, right? That would mean that, in theory, it could probably adapt to foreign genes being forced to merge with his own, assuming he could handle the dozens of surgeries that would require.

She vaguely remembered a part of his file that mentioned Orochimaru's intent to learn the world's jutsus, which was part of why he was so insistent on obtaining the Sharingan. It was why he attacked Itachi, then his little brother when he realized he wouldn't be able to put up a fight against the older Uchiha.

The thought made her feel sick. Itachi had entrusted his younger brother to her all those years ago, and this is what came of that trust? Even if he explicitly said that he didn't blame her for Sasuke's defection…

She felt so pathetic. Kana had lost countless teammates, she failed Sasuke, she was slowly failing Itachi, Kisame regularly used her as a toy… Did she even count as a shinobi anymore?

Maybe that was why she still wore her Anbu mask – it was the last real piece of evidence that she was a Leaf shinobi. It was physical proof of her loyalty to her home, but what did that _mean_? Did it still count if Kana was technically helping the Akatsuki, who wanted to wipe out the greater shinobi villages? Did it really only take her _saying_ that she was a warrior for the Leaf?

No.

Kana unsnapped her mask and slid the strap out from under her hair that kept it in place.

It _wasn't_ enough. It was time she stopped pretending like it was.

She wasn't a shinobi, she was just a highly-trained mercenary that missed home.

That's all.

* * *

 ** _Two days later..._**

"You know, you kind of look weird with the goggles on now." Kisame swayed a little to nudge Kana's shoulder, who easily sidestepped him and moved to stand on the other side of Itachi without looking up from _Icha Icha Dynamic_.

When she had woken the two of them up the other day so they could continue travelling, they both expressed surprise over seeing a bare face, as opposed to the normal porcelain mask, but something about her expression must have told them not to say anything, because neither of them made any sort of remark.

Well, until now.

When he realized he wasn't getting a response Kisame made a face and leaned forward to look around their comrade, the tiny bell on his hat tinkling with the movement, "You almost look like a black and red bug – why don't you just take them off?"

Itachi released an exasperated sigh and closed his eyes, "Kisame, hasn't she already explained that they play a role in stealth and battle?" he said chidingly, "They aren't a fashion statement."

"Yeah, but it's the middle of the day and we aren't fighting, so what's the point?"

He had a point. Truth was, Kana mostly wore them because she was just accustomed to the gentle pressure, and they acted sort of like sunglasses. With the lack of a cloth mask providing that same pressure, she felt too light and open so she kept the goggles on to reduce the sense of vulnerability that came with no longer wearing the Anbu mask. Still, if it would shut him up…

"Ah, there are those pretty alien eyes," Kisame purred when Kana pulled the goggles down so that they hung around her neck. She squinted against the sudden change in light, her bloodline traits making them rather sensitive to light, but didn't respond.

Normally the two would find themselves in a comfortable banter as they walked, lightheartedly teasing each other or talking about battle tactics they wanted to try together, but the last couple of days had been mostly spent in a heavy silence after their squabble in the forest.

It didn't go unnoticed by Itachi, who was usually tag-teamed in their teasing games when they got bored of each other, either. After getting breakfast at a roadside teahouse he had asked if everything was alright, but Kana just said that she was only tired, and didn't feel like contributing to Kisame's shenanigans. He didn't believe her, of course, and she could see that Itachi held a strong suspicion that Kisame had done something when he had walked off after her a few nights ago, but didn't press the issue. Even if he was the type to worry himself sick over those he cared for, he knew when to let Kana handle things on her own.

Because she could handle herself, right?

As the silence continued to wear on she activated her Kurogan to do a quick sweep, feeling as much as hearing the rocky dirt path crunch beneath her boots with every step. They were going to be coming up on a small village soon, and her stomach rumbled at the prospect of lunch. It seemed that the group did a whole lot of walking, or running when Itachi was feeling up to it, with the only real highlights of their days being food and sleep.

Still keeping her eyes locked on the newest volume of _Icha Icha_ , which really _wasn't_ the best of Jiraiya's work, Kana turned the page with one hand and tapped Itachi on the hand with the other, "There's a small town about a kilometer down the road if you're hungry," she murmured.

He raised a slender eyebrow in response, "How's their security?"

"It's not a shinobi village." Did he really think she'd suggest stopping if there was a security risk?

Eventually, though, they made their way to the village and found a little family-owned café nestled in the far corner. It didn't seem that there were many people living here, maybe a thousand at most, so the trio definitely stuck out like a sore thumb as they found seats near the back of the room. Kana couldn't help but wonder why the Akatsuki wore such conspicuous outfits even when the shinobi world was on alert for them – wouldn't it make more sense to wear something plain, as to not draw attention?

When Kisame didn't take his usual seat across from the pair Kana, trying to ignore him entirely, kept her nose buried in her book even as Itachi looked up to eye him curiously as he set his hat on the floor, balanced against his chair.

"Kana, come with me for a moment."

The use of her name, and not 'Little bird' finally caught her attention enough for her to glance up from _Icha Icha Dynamic_. There was no smirk on his face, no hint of mischief, as he waited expectantly for a response. A multitude of questions ran through her head, but she kept them to herself as she lifted herself from the chair that had yet to even warm.

He led her out the door and around the small building to a rather secluded area, away from prying eyes and curious ears, before turning to face Kana with an uncharacteristically somber expression.

There were subtle lines around his mouth, which was turned down into a deep frown, and Kisame's forehead creased as his eyebrows drew together tightly. For the first time since they had met, he actually looked his age. The sudden change in expression made her stomach sink and she could see her eyes flash against his face in response; what could wipe away his teasing smile like that?

Did Pain, or a Zetsu, say something to him? Was something happening? Was he alright?

As if completely unaware of what effect his uneasy appearance had on Kana, he just averted his gaze and folded his arms over his massive chest with a heavy sigh.

For a few agonizingly long minutes they just stood in an uncomfortable silence that felt almost tangible, as if the stress they were both clearly feeling was some invisible weight in the air that could be cut through with a knife. A part of her wanted to just activate her Ishikigan to see what was bothering Kisame for herself, but the rational part of her mind knew that he hated when she invaded his mind like that. Instead, Kana just twirled the end of her braid around a tattooed finger and gnawed on her lip while waiting for him to speak his mind.

After what felt like forever, Kisame's tongue flitted out to wet his lips as he took a deep breath through his nose, the muscle over his jaw flexing.

"Did you think I was going to... _Hurt_ you?" he finally asked, eyes still looking at everything that wasn't her.

Hurt her..?

 _Oh_.

Kana bit into her lip harder and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully as she tried to properly form a response, mulling over the events of the night in the forest. _Did_ she think that the man standing before her was going to force himself onto her?

She shifted her weight to her other foot and released a breath that Kana was unaware she had even been holding, "I… Don't like feeling helpless," she said slowly, "I don't like being held down, or bound. I think… I think I was just afraid of that feeling," Kana lowered her eyes to his chest and pulled on her braid, "I don't think I was afraid of _you_."

The muscle in his jaw clenched again as Kisame tensed before reaching out to place a heavy hand on the top of her head with a tug. She stumbled a little, caught off guard by the suddenness of the action, but quickly found her footing when the man pulled her into his chest.

"When I gave you this…" he used his other hand to thumb Kana's shoulder.

Acting on a whim, something that seemed to happen more often than she'd like around him, she lifted her hand to cover the one Kisame had on her head, sliding it down to cup her cheek. His hand was massive, nearly enveloping the side of her skull, and pleasantly rough against her skin, with scars and calluses, from decades of wielding a sword.

Kana pressed her face into the blue, bulky hand that cradled her head, "I wasn't afraid of you," she murmured.

There was a long, audible whoosh of breath as Kisame sighed heavily and rubbed at the scarred area of her shoulder through the fabric, "Good… That's good," he breathed as the kunoichi turned her head so that her cheek was pressed into his chest. Through the fabric of his shirt and cloak Kana could feel and hear his heart beating rapidly, thumping against his chest like a jackhammer, and the understanding of just how on edge Kisame was over the situation finally sunk in.

Her fingers curled around the hand still on her face and squeezed gently, "I can feel your heart racing," she hummed, echoing the same thing he had said to her when he bit her, "Have I finally made you nervous?"

Kisame chuckled in response, a low, husky sound that rumbled through his chest, and Kana could feel his muscles relax. He looped his arm around her shoulders, "You're dangerous, little bird," he muttered. Kisame tilted his head down and she could feel his breath on her hair when he rest his chin on the top of her head, "Riling you up is good fun, but I don't mean to _scare_ you -"

"Stop, Kisame," she cut in while turning her face up with her Ishikigan activated, _'It's fine. **We're** fine.'_

He balked at the icy sensation of the dojutsu but quickly recovered, a teasing smirk replacing the grimace as a familiar mischievous glint entered his eyes, ' _We?_ '

Kana rolled her eyes but cracked a small grin, _'Don't be weird…_ ' her smile faltered as a thought popped into her head, but the man answered it before she could ask.

' _Because it wasn't safe, with how closely the Zetsus have been watching you as of late,_ ' he thought solemnly, his own smile dropping, _'I'd be sad if you died.'_

Guilt settled in her chest like a cold weight at his words, which reminded Kana of the promise Itachi had made to her; she quickly released the dojutsu and tilted her face back down to rest it against Kisame's chest.

It wasn't a fast enough release, though, and she knew that he had still been able to sense the layer of emotions that she had allowed him to feel, in what was previously an attempt at comforting him. "You're hiding something." It wasn't a question.

Kana hesitated. They hadn't exactly been hiding it from him; they just didn't feel any reason to let him in on the deal. Would it matter if she told him now?

"I asked…" she trailed off, shaking her head with a sigh and moving her hands up to rest on his chest – however, whether or not it was to push away or pull him closer was something she wasn't quite sure of.

The hand still holding her face tugged her back up, though, and Kisame tightened the arm around her shoulders, "You aren't the type to hold that sharp tongue of yours for someone else's sake," he murmured, "Especially not mine."

Just like how Kana remembered, he smelled… Warm. Like ginger and other spices. How could someone that looked so cold and hard be so warm and comforting? Why couldn't he just be the vicious monster his name implied that he was?

"Little bird." Kisame's expression had hardened, eyes wary and full of confusion.

"I asked Itachi to…" The kunoichi hooked her lip under her canine and looked away from his expectant face as the feeling of guilt began to take on more weight. Why was this so hard? She had asked Itachi for the favor and felt a sense of relief over it… Why did Kana feel so bad telling Kisame?

Probably for the same reason she felt so comfortable with him.

"He promised he'd kill me when it was time for his fight with Sasuke," she said with a sigh, flattening her hands on his chest to push away.

Kisame had other plans, though, and the hand on her cheek left to circle her waist to join the one around her shoulders in pressing their bodies flush, like a reversal of the way he liked to sleep, " _What_?!" His voice was only barely louder than a whisper, but harsh and carried the anger that Kana could feel in the way his heart rate escalated.

The angle they were at, with Kisame leaning over slightly so that her back arched back, was beginning to get uncomfortable so she squirmed a little with a disapproving grunt, "Kisame. You're killing my back," she whispered, pushing back again.

Kana rubbed at her lower back with a frown after taking a step back, leaning forward a bit as if doing so would soothe the ache, "Look, I told you when I first joined that my purpose is to keep Itachi alive for as long as possible," she lifted her gaze to finally meet Kisame's, "What am I supposed to do once he's gone?"

Chest heaving with angry breaths, his jaw snapped shut – Kana could see it in the way his muscle flexed – and his white eyes narrowed, "He means that much to you, huh?" he hissed through clenched teeth.

What was he so angry about? "Kisame –"

The Mist-nin removed his straw hat, which tinkled as the bell was disturbed, and ran a hand through his shock of blue hair, "Itachi told me that you were precious to him," he snarled, "It makes sense that the feeling would be mutual. You feel that strongly about him, you do what you _want_."

With that, Kisame pushed past Kana and rounded the side of the building, leaving her alone with her heavy feelings of remorse.

She sighed for what felt like the umpteenth time in the last fifteen minutes or so and leaned against the wall before sliding down to a crouch. The plan had been to just be Itachi's doctor. That was all. Kana had felt as if the situation had been simplified by the promise of the Tsukiyomi, so why did everything feel infinitely more complicated than before?

 _"Please be safe. Please, stay alive."_

Neji's words, having been almost completely forgotten until that point, slammed into her gut like a speeding train, and the feeling of guilt suddenly felt like a boulder was crushing her chest – she had _never_ broken a promise to him, not once in her life. Kana _always_ came home to him, _always_ took care of him, beat the snot out of him when he needed it, and always, _always_ kept her promises no matter how stressful they were.

She knew that his request stemmed from the hope that they would be able to see each other again, so long as they both survived long enough, but Kana had explained that there was a chance they would be seeing each other in a hostile situation if they were ever to meet. Would Neji even know if she died?

No, of course not; the question was whether or not she was okay with letting down her baby brother. Would she be forced to exist with that knowledge in the afterlife?

Selfish. Kana was so fucking _selfish_.

Curling in on herself, she buried her face in her knees and screwed her eyes shut against the intense feelings of contrition that threatened to crush her, with a sudden sense of indecision that ripped through her heart.

Kana _always_ knew what to do – keeping her head in battle and thinking a step ahead of her opponent was what landed her the captain position in Anbu. But, as her teeth continued to draw blood from the lip she savagely gnawed at, she had no idea what to do.

Was it enough to live for someone else? Because someone precious asked for it, even if you'd never see their face again?

There were too many questions that she didn't have the answer to.

" _Report your position_ ," a familiar voice rang in her head, snapping Kana out of her wallowing thoughts. As familiar as the kunoichi was with digging around through peoples' heads and having private mental conversations, there was something extremely unsettling about the way that Pain could just jump in and talk like that.

She knew that it had to do with the rings they wore, the same ones that they used to communicate through those weird hologram-like figures, which was why Kana had a habit of removing it whenever she was doing something on her own time, but it was still unnerving.

"Uh… We're in some backwater village twenty miles southeast of the Land of Grass," she muttered out loud, keeping her head buried in her knees and her voice steady, "We're on our way to Iwa for the Four Tails."

" _We're having an all-hands meeting at the main hideout in two days. Relay the information to Kisame and Itachi_ ," Pain ordered curtly, immediately cutting off the connection.

Well, shit.

After a few moments of pulling herself together, which primarily meant that Kana pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes until little red and yellow starbursts appeared, the kunoichi rose to a standing position and sighed. Something really serious must have happened if they were being called together for an in-person meeting, an event that Itachi said hadn't happened since the teams had received their official beast assignments nearly four years prior.

Both Akatsuki members looked up from empty plates when she stepped under the cloth flags at the café's entrance – Itachi's eyes widened just a fraction at the sight of his childhood friend, shifting from shock to anger as they flitted to his partner accusingly.

Before either of them could say anything, though, Kana reached over the table for her hat and book, tucking the book into her hip pouch. "Pain's summoning everyone to the hideout," she said flatly, keeping her expression deadpan, "There's a meeting in a couple of days. If we leave now, we'll probably get there by noon tomorrow."

The men tore their eyes away from the rage-filled staring contest they had managed to get themselves into and looked up at her curiously.

"Did he explain what prompted the gathering?" Itachi asked in a voice that was just as cold as his expression. When Kana shook her head wordlessly he finished off his glass of water with a sigh, setting it back on the table with a ' _clink_.' "Then we can leave once you eat."

Fidgeting slightly, mostly because of how intensely Kisame was staring at her, she shook her head again, "I'm not hungry. Let's just go."

The suspicion on his face told Kana that Itachi didn't believe her obvious lie, but he didn't argue; he set a few bills on the table that was obviously more than what was owed, and stood up with his hat in hand. Silently, the trio made their way out of the café and through the village gates.

Like before they moved in an uncomfortable silence, the only sounds coming from their shoes crunching against the dirt road. The quietude left Kana with her thoughts again so she pulled out _Icha Icha Dynamic_ and thumbed to the page she had left off at. Of course it did absolutely nothing to distract her from the self-doubt and questions that were waging a war of dominance for her attention, but it gave her an excuse to lag behind the pair and avoid their fleeting gazes.

None of the shinobi would speak a word to each other over the next couple of days, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

* * *

 **Note** : *complains about how difficult it is to make Kisame affectionate without making him affectionate*

Anyways, sorry this chapter took a little longer to get up. Work, and all. Being a reviewer on YouTube takes up an obscene amount of your time for way too little pay.


	11. Chapter 11

As much as she thought their straw hats were eyesores, Kana couldn't help but admit that they were relatively useful when it came to weather protection as they stepped through the entrance of the looming metal building that housed the Akatsuki's main hideout.

She looked over at Itachi, who looked slightly paler than normal, and reached out to apply some medical ninjutsu to his left shoulder blade. While Kana was unable to warm up his body with chakra, she could manipulate his circulation so that it flowed better; that was all she could really do until they got to a private room that kept them away from prying eyes.

Kana didn't need to think about what could happen if the others learned about Itachi's illness.

"Look who _finally_ showed up," a familiar voice sneered when they walked into a large chamber, "Took ya long enough."

"That's tough talk coming from a bratty kid with one arm," Kisame smirked at Deidara, who grimaced at the reminder.

The blonde's attention soon shifted to the figure that stepped out from behind the Mist-nin, and he flashed a welcoming smile that accompanied his leer, "Who's the _babe_?"

Itachi's long lashes fluttered closed, an eyebrow twitching in subtle annoyance, and he turned to walk out of the room, probably in search of Madara. The idea of being left in a room with some of the most infamous names in the Shinobi World left Kana feeling squeamish but she didn't follow after him, knowing that the group was going to be watching each other carefully.

Irritation flickered across Kisame's face, as well, but before he could respond, Deidara sat up in his chair as recognition set in.

"No way - _pipsqueak_?!" he tapped his cheek, "Where's your mask, hn?"

Now somewhat used to the Hidden Stone shinobi's enjoyment of pointing out her height, Kana ignored him and activated her Kurogan to find the others. Pain and Konan were speaking with White Zetsu, Itachi was looking on the wrong floor for Madara… Where were Black Zetsu, and Hidan and Kakuzu? They had taken a full extra day to just dick around, none of them really wanting to walk through the torrential downpour of the Land of Rain, so shouldn't they have been the last team to arrive?

She locked eyes with Deidara through her goggles and smoothly switched to her Ishikigan to dig into his recent memories. The rogue-nin immediately frowned and screwed his eyes shut but, unsure of what exactly what was happening as Kana brought scene after scene to the forefront of his consciousness, he couldn't figure out how to make it stop.

What a moron.

Still, the easy dig didn't bring up any information – he had no idea what was going on, either. The kunoichi deactivated the dojutsu with an impatient huff and turned on her heel to walk over to the stairs that would eventually lead her to Pain's chamber.

Kana had been to the tower once before, when she met the Akatsuki's leader for the first time, but she still had to use her dojutsu every now and then to properly navigate the narrow metal halls. ' _Man, why would anyone want to live here?_ ' she thought to herself as she turned a corner. As appealing as an industrial village may sound, everything about Amegakure was grim and hard.

"Oh, Konan," she stopped when the organization's second in command stepped out of the chamber.

Unlike the rest of the group, Konan's face softened at the sight of the only other female in the Akatsuki, "Good, you arrived safely," she said warmly, extending a hand out, "I was about to gather the others but, come, I have something for you."

She… Has something for her? As strange as the notion was, Kana couldn't help but feel some of the tension in her shoulders ease at the unusual gesture and took Konan's hand in her own. Her fingers were long and slender as they wrapped around Kana's, and they were easily the softest hands she had ever felt. Kana marveled at how a shinobi was able to be so…

So _feminine_.

That was the only word that she could really use to describe Konan, who swiftly guided her through the halls that echoed their footsteps. With fair skin that looked smooth and healthy, warm orange eyes that almost glittered with anticipation, and hair that was so glossy it shone in the harsh fluorescent lighting, the Rain kunoichi was like a rare, radiant orchid.

Everything about her was so beautiful – no wonder the rest of the Rain village thought of her as their angel.

Konan finally stopped at the end of a hall, where she led Kana into a small room. It was plain for the most part, with a double bed clad in grey sheets, a large window on the far wall that overlooked the rest of the village, a dresser with a simple vanity, and a closet that Konan trotted over to eagerly. Was this her bedroom?

"When Pain told me of your cloak being ruined I assumed that the jumpsuit you wore had also been damaged, and, given the circumstances, it was the only one you had," she said as she rifled through some hangers, "I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of making this for you."

A black ensemble was procured from the closet on a hanger, and Konan quickly straightened it out as she crossed the room to where Kana was standing. At first it just looked like a black blob but, on closer inspection, she could see that it was something that was very reminiscent of the kunoichi's old outfit: A black, hooded, long-sleeved jacket that cut off just below the bust, and a black leotard. The leotard had a turtleneck collar and no sleeves or arm holes - the fabric was cut so that the back was completely open, with the fabric coming around towards the bottom in a low scoop.

In short, it looked pretty damn cool.

Looking up from the two-piece outfit, Kana gave Konan a curious look, "I don't understand… Why would you do this?" she half-whispered, thumbing the cotton-spandex blend; the fabric was a little heavier than what she used to wear, but was still light and breathable.

The kunoichi's gentle smile faltered at the question, "Do you not like it?"

"No – no, I love it, really," she answered truthfully, "I just… I mean, I wouldn't say that the organization is a club of _friends_ …"

Understanding crossed Konan's face, and her smile quickly returned as she tucked a lock of purple hair behind her ear, "Oh, well, it's been a long time since I've had another woman around," she said serenely, "And, I guess you could say… You remind me of myself, in a way."

What? The two had barely spoken more than a few sentences to each other in the year Kana had been with the Akatsuki – they hardly knew _anything_ about each other besides their names, and a basic understanding of each others' abilities.

As if sensing her confusion, Konan's smile turned sad and she turned to look out of the window, "We do extensive research into the backgrounds of each potential member, you know," she sat on the edge of her bed, eyes still gazing out at the rainy village, "You and Itachi were raised in blood – shaped and molded by the pain caused by this violent, accursed world… Pain and I were, as well. That pain is the only thing we've ever come to know…" Konan looked back to the Leaf-nin, "Yet, you continue to do everything you can to keep your precious person alive."

Kana's eyes narrowed behind her goggles; was she talking about Itachi's disease, or just the fact that she took a Lightning Blade for him? Did they even know that he was sick?

Not wanting to potentially give away information, she forced herself to crack a small smile, "Well, that's kind of depressing," she joked, "But… Thanks, Konan. The fact that you made this for me really means a lot… I wish I could repay you-"

"Nonsense, I've always made the organization's cloaks so this was really just an excuse for me to be creative," Konan raised a hand and waved it, her pleasant smile from earlier returning, "However, I'd like to see how it fits before you go – I'm afraid the measurements were mostly done through guesswork, and it looks as if you've lost a fair amount of weight since we last spoke."

Kana shifted uncomfortably at the idea of undressing with the rest of the Akatsuki littered throughout the compound. Her uneasiness must have been showing on her face, because the Rain-nin's hands flashed through familiar hand seals for a fuinjutsu and she shifted on the bed so that she was facing a wall, "Don't worry, I wouldn't expect you to change if I thought it was possible for the others to interrupt."

It was still outrageously weird to strip in the bedroom of the organization's _second in command_ , but Kana assumed that it would only make things unpleasant if she continued to stand there awkwardly, so she did as she was asked and undid the snaps to her still-damp Akatsuki cloak before letting it drop to the floor. Her boots and gear came next, joining the cloak on the floor in a pile of pouches and straps.

"Tell me, what happened to that mask of yours?" Konan asked as she tugged Itachi's lined mesh shirt over her head.

Was she really making idle chat? It wasn't so much that Kana minded, she just didn't expect much conversation from the woman that had been absolutely silent in every meeting she had participated in. "I still have it, I just don't see much of a point in wearing it anymore."

Konan turned her head slightly, "Why is that?"

"Because…" she slowly peeled off the tight pants as an excuse to pause – what if this was just a ruse? Was it a good idea to just open up to the other kunoichi like this? "Because I was done hiding behind it."

Despite it being an intentionally vague response, it seemed to satisfy Konan, who nodded in understanding. It didn't seem like she was going to ask any more questions as Kana pulled on the jumpsuit. The back definitely came down farther than she thought, barely covering her ass as she tried to readjust it so that the fabric actually came up to cover the muscle dip between her hips.

Thankfully it clung to her body like a second skin, so it felt relatively secure when Kana had pulled the collar over her head. The legs weren't cut too high, either, with the fabric coming up just past the junction of her leg and hip.

"Um, does it look okay?" she asked, not really sure what Konan was expecting.

The kunoichi grinned and nodded, standing up from the bed to cross the room and pinch at the jumpsuit here and there, "Looks like a perfect fit!" she declared while eyeing Kana up and down, "Is it uncomfortable anywhere? Can you fight with the back open like that?"

The Leaf-nin nodded and tugged on the cropped jacket, zipping it up and tugging her braid out so that it flopped over her shoulder, "It's really comfortable. Thank you."

"Do you need-"

" _It's time_."

Pain cut Konan off, who suddenly deadpanned. All mirth and excitement had been immediately replaced by the usual stony demeanor she wore as she stepped back and picked up the Akatsuki cloak off of the floor, "I'll hang this up to dry. You can come back later for it," she said coolly while putting the cloak on the hangar that had been previously used for the ensemble Kana now wore.

With practiced speed Kana strapped her belt to her hip and fastened her kunai holster to her thigh before stuffing the pants and shirt into her backpack. The straps of her boots took a hair longer than she would have liked to snap into place, but Konan waited patiently for her to get her shit together.

Like earlier, Konan guided the Leaf-nin through the halls of the Akatsuki tower, except that this time around she didn't carry an almost girlish eagerness. Kana followed suit and pushed away the warm fuzzy feelings she was feeling over the fact that she had just received a gift, slipping back into the steely expression she typically wore around the other members.

They approached the meeting chamber just as Pain did and Kana instinctively moved to her usual position where the left little finger would be on the Demonic Statue. There were two members missing, and their absence stuck out.

"What is this about, Pain?" Deidara groaned from his chair, looked both bored and infinitely irritated, "You call us all out here, I wait around for two days, and you haven't said jack shit. Enough with the -"

"Hidan and Kakuzu are have been killed," Pain said coldly once he reached the group.

Whoa… That was big – that was _really_ big. Weren't they both basically immortal?

Next to her, Kisame made a small noise that sounded like a chuckle, "So, the zombie combo finally met their match, huh?"

"Oh woooow! How-how could that happen?!" Madara squealed in his full Tobi persona, "Those two were invincible! No one could beat Mister Kakuzu when he was with Hidan!"

Pain remained expressionless as his eyes flitted from person to person, "Kakashi Hatake and the Nine-Tails defeated Kakuzu shortly before a young chunin from the Leaf killed Hidan."

"It was a revenge mission," Black Zetsu growled, "For killing Asuma Sarutobi."

Oh no… Asuma… He was _dead_?

Fear slammed into Kana's gut as her thoughts turned to the rest of the jonin's team.

Were Kotetsu and Izumo alright? Were they hurt?

If they killed Asuma… Then that meant…

She had to resist the urge to bite her lip against the wave of sorrow that crashed over her, lest she display any emotion over the deaths of her friends. The time for grieving would come later.

"Deidara, following the death of Sasori you will be paired with Tobi-"

The blonde released an irritated groan as his new teammate cheered and bounced, "Are you fucking _joking_?! What the _hell_ , man?! Why do I get stuck with the _moron_?!"

Normally this would be the point where Hidan or Kakuzu would jump in and say what everyone was thinking, that they were both idiots; the lack of insult-slinging felt odd.

Pain clearly didn't care, however, as he just closed his eyes and continued, "You will be tasked with obtaining the Three and Eight-Tails jinchuriki respectively. Once Kisame retrieves the Four-Tails, we will focus our efforts on the Nine-Tails as a group."

Kisame's grin widened curiously, "We can handle _that_ brat on our own," he purred.

"The Nine-Tails will be heavily guarded – the entire village would work to protect him if need be," Pain answered with a shake of his head.

"He's a moron," Kana cut in, folding her arms over her chest both as a gesture of confidence and a way for her to physically brace herself, "I could just sneak in and put him under a genjutsu so he leaves the village with me." She did _not_ want the Akatsuki invading the Leaf as a group.

Deidara, still agitated from being stuck with Tobi, narrowed his eyes and turned to face her, "Wait a minute… Earlier – that was _you_?!" His lips curled over his teeth in an angry snarl, "Stay the _fuck_ outta my head, you _two-cent_ -"

Kana flickered over to stand behind him, grabbing his one good arm and twisting it around to his back with her fingers positioned at the ready to snap the wrist, "The grownups are talking," she hummed calmly. She hated Deidara, had just learned that two of her best friends are dead and was trying to work to keep the Akatsuki from plowing their way through her home. Kana wasn't dealing with his shit today.

"Careful, kid, I've seen her kill for less," Kisame sneered as his smirk turned malicious, as if testing the teen to open his punk ass mouth.

"But, Kana, weren't you just _at_ the Leaf?" White Zetsu asked in his creepy singsong voice, "I'm _awfully_ curious, you know. You didn't let me come with you and I was _so_ sad that I got to miss out on something _fun_!"

The hand she had wrapped around Deidara's wrist twitched in response – she had been hoping that the other spy was going to keep his trap shut about that. Guess not.

"I was collecting information on their security while I was in the area," Kana lied, keeping her voice even as her anxiety began to rise. She didn't even learn about the platoons until Danzo had told her, after she gave him a status report while simultaneously blackmailing him, but it didn't hurt to use the information if it meant saving her own skin. "The Leaf has organized a special shinobi branch called the Niju Shotai. It's composed of twenty teams of four, all led by jonin and tokubetsu jonin. Ten teams are rotated out each week to search the Land of Fire for Akatsuki. Asuma Sarutobi's squad was a part of it."

Pain didn't seem to respond other than exchanging stony glances with Konan as if they were communicating telepathically. Did the Rinnegan grant that power?

Oh, wait. Kana looked down at the light blue ring on her left pinky – he used the rings to communicate telepathically. That actually made sense, then, why the two were just kind of staring at each other awkwardly. Was this what it was like to watch her talk to someone with the Ishikigan?

"We will take your suggestion and information into consideration," Pain finally said, stepping away from the table, "Until then, continue on to retrieve information on the Four-Tails. Tobi will contact you when he needs your help with the Three-Tails. Meeting is adjourned. You may all rest here tonight before embarking on your assignments."

Releasing Deidara's wrist, Kana stepped back from the kid and turned to go… Where?

She looked over to Itachi for some sort of direction but he looked too lost in thought to pay attention to the swirling eyes that were trying to bore holes into the side of his head so, instead, the kunoichi decided that she'd wander off and find a quiet place to just be alone. If they wanted to head out, _they_ could find _her_.

That quiet place ended up being some strange empty room with no furniture or door whatsoever, but with a large window set in a recessed wall that barely provided enough light for her to read the notebook Kana was already pulling out of her backpack by the time she parked her ass on the ledge. Lucky for her, she had eyes that glowed in the dark.

Pulling her goggles down so that they hung around her neck, Kana flipped to the last page she had left off on and began to read. This part of the tome she had written down directly covered all of the fantastic amazing shit you could do with the barrier prison, and why they took so damn long covering projectiles instead of just getting straight to this was just absolutely beyond her.

She had only learned to use the pulsing wave in conjunction with the prison, and the spikes, but it had never occurred to her to essentially use the body blast on a much larger scale by projecting it through the shield. It used an enormous amount of chakra, so the text suggested that she just use a more controlled version by using chakra senbons instead, but still.

It was too bad that she could hardly concentrate on the material, as her mind refused to focus on the written words. Her thoughts kept lingering back to her two favorite chunin, her precious friends' deaths, as a familiar chakra presence drew close. She looked up from the paragraph that she had been engrossed with to see a looming figure standing in the doorway.

Without waiting for a response Kisame crossed the small, empty room until he reached the recessed window. He placed Samehada on the floor and sat on the ledge with a heavy sigh, looking as tense as he had been when he asked Kana about the night in the forest.

She wondered if she should say something, ask if he was okay, but decided that it would be best to just let him approach the subject on his own so, instead, the kunoichi looked back down at the notebook that she could barely read in the dimming light.

Eventually the Mist-nin took a deep breath and leaned forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees. Realizing that he was ready to talk, Kana closed her notebook and dropped it into her backpack so he knew she was listening.

"When I was still a jonin for the Mist, I had to kill the comrades I had been assigned to as their guard to prevent the Leaf from getting the intel they were delivering," Kisame said slowly, voice barely louder than a whisper, "I found out later that one of my superiors had been selling information the entire time, so I killed him."

He ran a hand through his spiky blue hair and sighed heavily, hanging his head, before continuing, "The Mizukage came to me and _commended_ me for my ' _loyalty_ ,' and I ended up joining the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. I felt as if my existence was a lie, like I really _was_ the Monster of the Hidden Mist that people called me... I couldn't understand what my purpose in life was – I felt as if I was existing, but not _living_. Like nothing I did _mattered_ …" Kisame's hands came back from his hair to rub his tired-looking face as he spoke, "I was approached by a man named Madara Uchiha that explained this plan he had for bringing about peace. I didn't exactly _trust_ him, but the notion was appealing. Skip ahead a bit, and the Daimyo of the Land of Waters ordered my death for planning to overthrow the government, among other reasons. That's how I ended up with the Akatsuki."

Kana's eyebrows furrowed in thought as her mind worked to process the mound information that had suddenly been dumped on her. His situation… Really wasn't all that different from theirs, was it? He cared for his home, that much she already knew, but the reason he had left was because he just wanted a better future for the Mist. Sure, the Akatsuki's end goal was to stop conflict, but it hadn't really occurred to her that it was what the other members truly wanted; she had just assumed that most of them joined because they had nothing else to do – no place to go.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked quietly.

"Because I understand what it's like to not know what your place is in this world, and I don't think suicide's the answer," Kisame finally looked up from the floor to look the kunoichi in the eye expectantly.

Kana caught her lower lip under her canine and frowned, "Why do you _care_ , Kisame? What does it _matter_?"

The expectant look he wore quickly turned into one of frustration, and he slammed his fist against the wall, where it caved in slightly under the force, with an angry grunt. For a few moments Kisame seemed to be intensely mulling something over, she could see it in the way his brow knitted and his eyes tightened a little around the edges, before he twisted around and reached out.

Every shinobi-trained instinct in Kana's being told her to throw up a barrier and put distance between the two of them, but she forced herself not to move upon recalling the conversation the two had the other day. The suddenness of Kisame's movements still caused her to flinch, though it didn't stop him from roughly grabbing her shoulder and yanking Kana forward.

His lips were thin and hard against hers, and moved with a slow clumsiness that spoke volumes of his inexperience as his hand moved up to the back of her head to hold her in place. It took her a few moments to even realize what was happening, genuinely thinking that this was some sort of accident or that Kisame was trying to eat her but, once Kana understood what was going on, she sighed into the kiss and shifted so she wasn't kneeling preciously on the edge of the recessed windowsill.

Kana felt the sharp nick just before the metallic tang of blood sprang into her mouth, and Kisame released her head to look at her in alarm.

"I didn't mean to…" he trailed off with a frown, looking irritated, flustered and disappointed all at once.

She just gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile and leaned in again, "It's fine," she murmured against his cheek, kissing the gill-like markings there. A small smear of blood transferred onto Kisame's skin with the gesture so Kana flicked her tongue out to wipe it away, feeling a sense of satisfaction at the subtle hitch in his breath.

 _'You're in_ _ **my**_ _territory now,'_ she thought to herself with a smirk while trailing her lips along his cheek before stopping to hover over Kisame's ear, where she released the breath she had been holding so that it ghosted over the shell, teeth nipping at the soft flesh of his earlobe with a quiet chuckle when his breathing quickened.

As if able to sense her teasing thoughts, Kisame grabbed Kana by the hip with his spare hand and sharply pulled with a low grunt so that she tumbled across his thighs. With the same firm grip, he lifted her up and twisted her around, much like a child would fling their ragdoll about, until she was awkwardly straddling his lap with her arms pinned thanks to Kisame's arms wrapping around her.

Graphic images of having her face gnawed off appeared in Kana's mind when he leaned back down, so she leaned back as far as his iron grip would allow and turned her head so that his lips bumped her jaw instead.

There was a long pause where neither of them said anything, just sitting in silence with their faces pressed together as the last rays of twilight vanished into darkness. Eventually Kisame sighed and lightly brushed his nose over her cheek, and she could almost hear his brain shorting out as he struggled to come up with something to say.

"I'll be careful," he finally said in a gruff voice that was only slightly louder than a whisper; Kana wasn't sure if he was being quiet because of their location or because of just how quiet the dark room was already, but she quickly decided that she didn't particularly care as she turned her face back up.

True to his word, Kisame's mouth displayed an uncharacteristic amount of self control as it worked with hers; she could feel his lips curled just slightly over the edges of his teeth to act as a sort of barrier. A part of her felt dissatisfied, wanting him to simply let loose and unleash the tension that she could feel quivering in the arms that bound her, but Kana also knew that this would be a very painful and bloody experience if he did.

Her mind flashed back to their first shared morning at the inn, recalling how it felt to have his teeth sinking into her shoulder, how it felt to have his tongue tend to the wounds like she was an injured cub. Kana had been terrified by the animalistic behavior, unsure of what was going to come next, but she had also felt a disturbing calm blanket her consciousness at how intimate that display of savagery was.

Feeling this restrained control coming from a man that just fell short of feral… It was uncomfortable. It felt _wrong_.

Emboldened by desire for that animalistic side, Kana returned the kiss needily, fiercely, taking Kisame's lip between her teeth and tugging with a soft groan. Whether the sharp gasp that followed was that of surprise or arousal didn't matter to her, and she took the opportunity to slip her tongue between his parted lips, eager to find out if Kisame tasted like he smelled.

He did – oh gods, he did. He tasted warm and spicy and so delicious, only slightly mitigated by the sweet flavor of saliva as his tongue fluttered clumsily against hers, like a hummingbird with an injured wing. Kana could feel his heart thump against his chest in time with his quickening breath, subtle shows of his waning control even as his lips twitched around the pointed teeth they were curled around.

"Little bird…" he breathed warningly, pulling back just far enough so that he didn't chomp through her tongue when he spoke, "I'd show caution if I were you."

They were the same words Kisame had spoke when he had marked her, except his voice had a much more dangerous edge to it this time around that caused Kana's cheeks, and other parts much farther south, to flush.

Using what little space she had, Kana wriggled one arm free so that she could roughly grab a fistful of blue hair and pull Kisame's head back down into a bruising kiss, taking his bottom lip into her mouth and sucking harshly. A low, husky growl rumbled in the back of his throat as his arms tightened around Kana's body and tugged her so that their chests were pressed flush. The growl turned into a salacious groan when the movement ground their pelvises together, and she couldn't help but roll her hips to get some more of that delicious friction.

"Cut the shit, Kisame," Kana used the hand buried in his hair to pull his head down so her tongue could flit over the spine of his ear, "I can fix whatever you break. Just _take_ me."

There was less than a second between the words leaving her mouth and Kisame hoisting her up so that she was standing in front of him; for a fleeting moment she thought that she was being rejected, shoved away, but the thought was quickly cut off by the familiar sounds of snaps being pulled open as he unsnapped his cloak. Kana took the hint and unzipped her cropped jacket, shrugging it to the ground with her swords still attached, and pulled the collar of her jumpsuit over her head. As Kana peeled it over her hips and kicked it away from her ankles, she heard the distinctive sound of a zipper being pulled just before a rough hand grabbed her waist and yanked her into Kisame's lap.

"You asked for it," he snarled as she felt something warm and blunt being pressed against her entrance.

She almost passed out when Kisame slammed her hips down, the pain of being stretched beyond her body's limits feeling so intense that, for a few long moments, Kana was completely blinded. Her hands jumped up to grip the arm holes in the man's turtleneck, desperate for some sort of anchor, and the agonized scream that tore through her chest seemed to get stuck in her throat, which had tightened at the intensity of being ripped open, and came out as a choked whine that melted into something of a sob.

As dark as the room was, with only a thin sliver of the moon's white light trickling in, Kana had no way to actually see just how large Kisame's erection was – she probably would have been much less brave if she had, because she immediately realized that it was directly proportionate to the rest of his massive body.

Without giving her any time to recover he planted both hands on her hips, lifted her tiny frame back up, and slammed her back down with a long, liquid moan. Kana screwed her eyes shut and focused on trying to repair the bleeding tears, biting back a whimper when Kisame repeated the action. This _was_ what she had asked for – she had no right to complain now.

Nudging her face back up, Kisame assaulted her mouth with reckless abandon. He roughly nipped at her upper lip, teeth ripping into the flesh, and captured it between his own with a husky groan. "So… So fucking tight," he growled, thrusting up into Kana hard enough to where she saw stars as her flesh tore, "That's right… _Hnng_ …" Another sharp thrust, "Fuck - _yes_ \- break for me, little bird…" Kisame's words were strained, ground out through what Kana imagined was sheer willpower, as he picked up the pace.

The excruciating pain began to become mitigated by flashes of pleasure with the application of healing chakra, allowing Kana's body to finally adjust to the sheer immensity of the erection that was beginning to ruthlessly pound into her core. She let her head fall back as Kisame pressed his face back into hers, his tongue plunging down her throat while somehow finding the ability to drive his member even painfully deeper into her body.

She struggled to find the presence of mind to make a sound, a grand feat in itself when Kana's entire consciousness was centered on the intense feeling of cock filling her completely and then some. Even as the pain began to slowly melt away thanks to what was now becoming her favorite form of medical ninjutsu the kunoichi could only focus on holding onto Kisame's shirt for dear life, and _not being split in two_.

Kana wasn't even aware that she had been trembling until the man released her hip to wrap one arm around her shoulders and slowed his movements to a gentle rocking.

"You've done this before… Right?" he murmured against her lips.

She probably would have laughed right then and there if Kana had the proper frame of mind for it. He was asking this _now_?

Instead of laughing the kunoichi nodded and released Kisame's shirt to circle her arms around his neck, "I'm just having trouble adjusting…" she wiggled her hips a little, trying not to wince at the subsequent stinging, "And I can't move in this position."

He scooted back on the ledge so that Kana's knees finally rested on the cold metal of the recessed window, "Better?"

Using Kisame's shoulders as leverage, she readjusted herself so that she was properly straddling his lap, putting her weight on her legs as opposed to his crotch, and then experimentally pushed herself up before sliding back down, listening to the soft groan that came from the Mist-nin. Kana finally opened her eyes as the tension began to melt away, and rolled her hips in time with Kisame's gentle rocking, "Y-yeah… Thank you."

The man nudged her face back up to lock their lips together as the pair settled into sensual rhythm; Kisame's hands moved back down to her waist to help keep Kana steady while she dropped herself back down onto his lap with a soft gasp.

It wasn't long before the small metal room they were in was filled with the subtle sounds of sex - skin rubbing against skin, moans that were muffled by their mouths being crushed together in bruising, bloody kisses, and ragged pants. Kana could feel as much as hear the husky groan that rumbled up through his chest when Kisame roughly jerked his hips up to meet hers as they slammed back down, the hands he had on her waist sliding down and around to grip her ass in response. She felt her heart somehow race even faster than before when his rough, calloused fingers dug painfully into her flesh, and Kana found herself grinning into the kiss when Kisame's teeth aggressively nipped at her lips.

That grin was quickly wiped away when he shifted his hips, changing their angle, and the head of his cock rammed into the bundle of nerves that made her see stars. Desperate to feel the fucking fantastic sensation again, Kana met his upwards thrust with the same amount of force, clenching around him when jolts of pleasure flashed through her body.

"Fuck – yes – hold me in," Kisame snarled, turning his head just a bit so that their cheeks were touching, "Take it, little bird – _fuck_ – _take_ it!" Each of his words were punctuated by a harsh thrust, and Kana found herself having to viciously gnaw on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out in time to his cock somehow forcing its way deeper.

An appreciative mewl managed to escape as the familiar tension began to coil between her legs. Kana's hands slipped down to grip Kisame's upper arms and her bangs flopped to cover most of her face when her head dropped forward, face buried in his neck, "K-Kisame…" Her short nails dug into his flesh at another sharp thrust, "I – fuck – Kisame – I –" Kana gave up on words when her own thin whine cut her off.

With a long, throaty moan Kisame's arms suddenly wrapped around her waist, pinning her to his chest, just before his hips sped up to a pace that left her desperately hanging onto him and struggling to keep her voice down.

"I can feel you – _hnng_ – squeezing me," he grunted, leaning back against the window, "Come for me, Kana – fuck – let me do the work – just come for me, show me how much you like my dick."

For as much as it squicked Kana to hear that kind of filthy commentary, she couldn't help but moan loudly into his collar in response, clenching around Kisame involuntarily as he brutally thrust into her body and struck that bundle of nerves again and again.

With the sheer force of being fucked by a man twice her size, which probably harbored double of the raw, sexual energy, she was reduced to clinging to his body helplessly and releasing a stream of erotic noises that only seemed to stop long enough for her to gasp and sputter. There was something intensely erotic about Kisame's animalistic display, at the way he was ruthlessly wringing his pleasure from her body, that tightened the coil in her abdomen to the point of being just about to spring.

"Please, Kisa… Kisame – _please_ – _anngh_ – Kisa –" Kana felt the sticky warmth of blood from where her nails were biting into his skin as she struggled with coherency. She wasn't sure what exactly it was that she was pleading for, which was basically just her babbling and stuttering nonsense into his collar, but Kisame seemed to have an idea. With a loud, booming moan that was definitely going to deafen both of them, the man sank his teeth into her shoulder viciously.

It was all she needed to be tipped over the edge. As soon as her skin broke beneath the hot, wet feeling of Kisame's mouth, Kana's entire body tensed and her consciousness turned into a hazy smear as her orgasm crashed into her like a tidal wave, salacious mewls and whines merging into a desperate keening.

As soon as she tightened around his cock Kana could feel as much as hear Kisame growling into her shoulder as his pace became erratic. A series of syllables were grunted out – something that sounded dirty and rude enough to make Jiraiya blush – but most of it was muffled by her skin that his mouth was still wrapped around.

The kunoichi's head felt like it had turned into velvet, just warm, fuzzy blackness, but she managed to pull her thoughts together enough to turn her head down enough so Kisame could hear her.

"Let go, Kisame. Come –" Kana screwed her eyes shut and tried not to focus too much on the words she knew would push him over, "Give it to me – mark me – I want to feel your come – fuck, Kisame, _please_!" _'Also, kindly let go of my shoulder, first, so you don't crush it,'_ she added silently.

He shuddered in response, pulling his head back with a hoarse groan and stilling his hips. Kisame bucked upwards once, twice, breathing harshly through his nose and pressing their bodies flush as he found his release with a final grunt.

Neither of them moved for several long minutes, the only sounds being their ragged pants as they struggled to get their breathing under control. Kisame sagged into the window, mumbling something incoherent under his breath, and Kana relaxed bonelessly in the arms still wrapped loosely around her waist. Her hands slipped from his oozing biceps, the tips of her fingers coated in a thin layer of blood, and her own arms moved to lazily bracket his ribcage.

When they both came down from the high of their orgasms, and their breathing evened out, Kisame sighed contentedly and stretched as best he could with the body still practically lying on top of him. "Got a little carried away there," he murmured, "You okay?"

Kana's voice seemed to have picked that moment to stop working, reducing her attempts at speaking to abortive noises, so she settled with just tilting her head up long enough to focus chakra to her eyes and lock them on the white, beady eyes that were gazing down at her.

 _'Oh fuck-'_

She shook her head and turned her head back down with a disinterested hum, _'It isn't that bad.'_

One of the arms that had been looped around her waist moved so that Kisame's fingertips were tenderly brushing along the new bite marks, _'I can **feel** this. I can **feel** what I did to your vagi-'_

 _'Kisame. Please. Shut up,'_ Kana sighed and slid off of him to lie on the cold metal of the window ledge, _'I'm tired. I'm sore. I'm okay.'_ The Mist-nin twitched as his oversensitive member slipped out of her body, which was the last thing she felt before she released the dojutsu, not feeling quite up to maintaining the miniscule chakra control that it required. Kana shivered slightly against the sudden lack of warmth and rolled onto her back to grab her cloak, only to realize that it was still hanging in Konan's room.

Before she could start kicking herself in the ass, though, Kisame had shifted next to her and was hovering over Kana's body, his weight being braced on the forearms he had placed on either side of her shoulders. At first she thought that he wanted to go another round, and was preparing to come up with something witty before kneeing him in the gut, but he lowered his face down to her shoulder before she could form any words.

The warm, velvety feeling of his tongue on her skin, and the comforting weight of his body on hers, was the last thing Kana felt before passing out.

* * *

When Kana blacked out, Kisame was absolutely certain that he had somehow killed her. Maybe she had gone into shock from the physical trauma, or he had crushed something by laying on top of her, or the realization of having _fucked_ him gave her a heart attack.

He pulled back enough to look at her face, which didn't help to ease his worries, considering how freakishly pale she always was. Blood was smeared over partially-healed lips and parts of her cheeks as a testament to the brutish treatment he gave her, matching the blood that covered Kana's shoulder and thighs. When he saw the gentle rise and fall of her chest, and the subtle throbbing at her pulse point, he relaxed.

Kisame knew that he should probably feel guilty over having been the one to tear into her like that, but he couldn't help but feel a sick sense of satisfaction at the sight. There was a predatory part of him that swelled with pride with the understanding that _he_ was the one that did this – that it was _his_ mouth that made those bite marks, and it was _his_ jizz that was oozing between her legs and mixing with her blood.

There was something morbidly beautiful about the display, about Kana sleeping peacefully in the moonlight with blood and semen – man, Kisame never realized just how _much_ he came – covering the bruises and scars that littered her skin. Someone better-spoken probably would have been able to come up with something poetic about the sight, but he settled with appreciating how he was the only person to see her like this.

The pride he felt quickly melted into a jealousy that burned like a hot coal in his chest. Kisame didn't want to think about where she had learned to talk like that, or who she had slept with before him. He wanted to rake his nails over Kana's sickly pale skin, to leave bruises on her arms and violate her pretty body with his cock and rut her like a fucking animal until she screamed for mercy. He wanted to leave evidence, physical _proof_ that he had been here. Kisame wanted to mark her and leave his scent on her skin so that anyone that came in contact with her knew that she was _his_.

Dimly, as he lapped at the soft flesh of her shoulder, he was aware that the notion was incredibly irrational. They hadn't agreed on anything. They weren't in a situation where it would even make sense, really, for the pair to agree on exclusivity – it wasn't even as if Kisame was the romantic type, having only fucked any number of whores that could hardly stand looking at him, only agreeing to the lukewarm fucking for the money.

But, damn it all if he didn't feel an inhuman rage at even the _idea_ of someone else putting their hands on the too-thin body that lay beneath him.

Kana's eyes fluttered open, as if sensing his lust-fueled anger, and her eyebrows knitted together half-heartedly in confusion. At first he thought he had voiced his thoughts, and waited for the angry response that was sure to come from the hot-headed Leaf-nin, but she only smiled sweetly and lifted a hand to tiredly pat his cheek. Kana mumbled incoherently while her hand rested on his cheek, which was scarred and callused while still infinitely softer than his own. Her hand dropped back down to rest next to her head as her eyes slid shut again, looking satisfied with whatever syllables had just been garbled out.

It had been short, but the tender distraction brought Kisame back down to Earth long enough for him to push away the burning jealousy that was birthed from his own insecurities - the same insecurities that Deidara had preyed on earlier while asking about Itachi and his good looks. When she first joined the Akatsuki nearly a year ago she had said that her eyes used to be different – he wondered if they glowed like that, or if they had been another color…

He mentally slapped himself. Kisame Hoshigaki – Monster of the Hidden Mist, Tailless Tailed Beast – was pondering over a woman's _eyes_? If the other Seven Swordsmen had heard what he just thought they would have, without a doubt, taken his sword and revoked his title. Except for maybe Zabuza, since everyone knew he _adored_ the kid he had strung along up until he got himself killed.

The self-disgust Kisame felt lasted all of ten seconds, because Kana soon shivered in the chilly air of the metal room and curled into him. A resigned sigh escaped his lips and he grabbed his Akatsuki cloak to wrap her up like a human burrito before stuffing his flaccid, sticky member back into his pants and closing them up. Once he gathered her clothes and belt and put them in the backpack that never seemed to be more than ten feet away from her, chuckling at the realization that Kana was still wearing her athletic bra and boots, Kisame slung the bag over one shoulder.

Samehada snickered maliciously and made a joke about the Mist-nin going soft as he slung the sword strap over his shoulder, which Kisame responded to by swearing and threatening to make him absorb Kana's abominably gross chakra. The threat silenced the sentient sword quickly.

Scooping the still-sleeping kunoichi up, he quickly navigated the halls of the Akatsuki hideout to his assigned room. She'd probably be pissed in the morning, like she always was when Itachi wasn't within fucking _arm's length_ the second she woke up, but that was too damn bad. If Kana wanted to pick her room then she shouldn't have passed out the second his dick slipped out.

Kisame smirked at the thought and looked down at the sleeping figure in his arms, _'Guess I fucked your brains out, little bird.'_

That was exactly when Itachi decided to round the corner, looking uncharacteristically flustered. When he saw Kana unconscious, lips torn and still a little bloody, his eyes immediately glowed red and morphed into the Mangekyo before flitting up with an accusing glare.

"What did you _do_ ," he asked in a low, steady voice that did nothing to betray his best friend's building rage. It was the silent type of anger that sent chills up your spine, and Kisame was pretty sure that if he answered wrong, it would mark the end of his life.

Damn Leaf-nin and their freakish eyes.

"She's just asleep," Kisame answered, suddenly feeling angry, "Don't worry, I didn't _steal_ your _kill_."

Ever the master of his emotions, Itachi's eyes only widened a fraction in response, "What are you talking-"

"She already told me about your sick suicide pact, Itachi. Don't think you can bullshit me." Kisame spat each word out like it was a curse, and he instinctively tightened his hold on Kana. This asshole had no right – _no_ right what-so-fucking- _ever_ – to be angry with him. "We fucked," he explained, "My teeth cut her, and she's tired as hell after worrying about _your_ sorry ass all the time, but she can handle herself. I'm taking her back to my room if you get sick and need her," Kisame slid the backpack off of his shoulder, carefully balancing Kana against his chest with his other arm, and passed it to the Leaf-nin, "Your medicine's inside, otherwise. Night."

He didn't wait for a response and moved to pass Itachi, but was stopped by a hand that gripped his upper arm in an iron grip.

"If you bring harm to her, if you _hurt_ her, I will end your traitorous existence before you can even comprehend what is happening."

Kisame shrugged him off and kept walking, "That's rich."

* * *

Two things: Kana was cold, and Kana was in pain.

A low, miserable groan was muffled by the pillow she had been drooling on as she struggled to push herself up, only to feel white-hot pain shoot up from between her legs and a small tearing sensation on her mouth. She dropped back into the futon with a whimper.

"About time you woke up," a familiar voice called, "I was beginning to think you had slipped into a coma."

Kana groaned again and burrowed into the sheets – it seemed like every time that accursed man wasn't smothering her in his sleep, she was left to freeze to death in what was basically a pancake with a comforter thrown over it. Seriously, for as much as the Akatsuki made in bounties you'd think that they'd get decent futons, or _real_ beds; poor Itachi must be freezing his ass off –

She jumped up at the thought, ignoring the excruciating sensation of her body trying to reject the idea, and frantically looked around the room, "Itachi! Where is he? What time is it? I need to –"

"Calm _down_ ," Kisame's voice sounded irritated as he spoke from the attached bathroom, "Prince Charming's got his meds and he knows where you are if he needs you. Worry about yourself, for once. You look like hell."

Yeah, well, she _felt_ like hell. Still, if Itachi had his medicine and knew where she was, then it was probably safe to say that he was alright… Kana flashed her Kurogan to see him comfortably snoozing with an assortment of blankets wrapped around his body a few rooms down, and she released a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding.

With that concern out of the way Kana lifted up the blanket that covered her to assess the damage, shivering a little at the cool air that rushed in to meet her skin. There was a little bit of dried blood between her thighs and on her lady bits, and there were bruises on her hips, thighs, flanks and ass, but it didn't look like there was any serious damage.

As Kana lowered a hand to between her legs to apply some basic medical ninjutsu, realization struck and she yanked the blanket back up to her chest.

" _Kisame_ – why am I _naked_?!" she hissed, drawing her knees up and curling in on herself.

He finally came out of the bathroom, looking both irritated and amused, with a towel wrapped around his waist and another being rubbed into his spiky blue hair, "I think it's a bit late for modesty, little bird," he purred with a widening smirk. When Kana's eyes narrowed angrily, he rolled his own and dropped into an easy chair with a heavy sigh, "I was too tired to bother with dressing you. That's all."

While the answer didn't totally satisfy her, Kana didn't press the issue and just focused on soothing the burning ache between her legs. She had been nude in front of literally dozens of people in the past, what with using the communal showers during the vast majority of her career as a shinobi, but there was something that made her feel incredibly uncomfortable about being undressed in front of Kisame.

Still, she needed to get up and take a shower, even if that meant walking around bare-assed in front of the shark man. The smell of sex and blood was all over her like a sick pheromone – though the blood smell was probably from the warm liquid dripping from her mouth. Apparently the tearing sensation Kana felt earlier was from a scab that had dried into the pillow, and was ripped off when she picked herself up.

Ugh.

The chilly air on her back was suddenly replaced by a familiar warmth, and a rough, callused hand was tilting her face up by the jaw. Kisame grinned, "You looked cold."

His skin was warm and slightly damp, probably from having just taken a shower, and Kana couldn't help but sigh at the comforting feeling of his arm looping around her shoulders. For the horse's ass that Kisame was, and as awkward as she felt being naked in front of him, there was something about the way he felt that was so… _Secure_. Shit, she hated admitting it, but it was true; it was why the kunoichi let him drag her into bed like an oversized teddy bear instead of keeping a close eye on Itachi at night. If it weren't for the man running the tip of his tongue over the blood that trickled from the deep cut on her lip, Kana probably still wouldn't be sleeping properly.

She grinned when his lips sealed over hers. What a strange man.

"It's ironic that someone as prickly as you can taste so pretty," Kisame muttered with a throaty chuckle.

Kana's smile fell.

 _"You even **taste** pretty."_

The memory of Izumo's words, that had long since been forgotten, acted as a harsh reminder that slammed into her gut like a speeding train. Kana twisted her face out of Kisame's grip and jerked away from the arm that had been loosely wrapped around her upper body, but he quickly used both hands to grab her by the waist and yank her back.

"Let me fucking go," she spat, using an elbow to jab at one of his ribs.

He tightened his grip, "Calm down. It was a _joke_."

No, she needed to get away. She needed to be alone.

Kana's eyes screwed shut against the hot tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes, as if doing so would stop the flood of fond memories she had of the chunin from pouring into the forefront of her consciousness, and pushed at the hands that held her waist in an iron hold, "I need to take a shower," her voice shook slightly in her ears, betraying the steady tone she had been going for, " _Please_. Let _go_."

Suddenly she was flat on her back, bruises protesting the rough treatment, with Kisame hovering over her with an expression that looked every bit furious.

"God _dammit_ , woman, I'm sick of you doing this!" he nearly shouted, "You get all bitchy and then scream at me to piss off, or you run away. That's _bullshit_! You worry so fucking much about Itachi – doting on his every goddamn need – let someone worry about _you_ for fucking once!"

The Mist-nin wasn't holding her down, with both of his hands planted on either side of her head, so Kana balled up her fist and drove it into his nose. It didn't have a ton of force behind it, mostly being short and quick, but, nonetheless, she could hear the cartilage crunch under her knuckles just before feeling the warmth of blood on her skin.

"What do you fucking want?!" she shouted back, pushing at the broad, muscled shoulders that refused to budge, "I don't need people worrying about me! Just get off of me, asshole!"

Kisame gripped her wrists and pinned them above her head with a scowl, blood dripping from his nose as it healed itself, "You get these back when you learn to fucking _behave_ ," he snarled, tightening his grip when Kana bucked and writhed angrily, "You know what I want, Kana?! I want you to let me fucking help you for fucking once. Why do you act like you have to deal with everything on your own?! Tell me what's going on! _Shit_!"

She squirmed, feeling his hands tighten to the point where Kana knew there would be bruises later, and narrowed her eyes as her anger began to peak, "I told you, Kisame, cut the shit - you don't have to pretend to give a fuck just to get laid so get the hell off so I can go -"

Her words were cut off when Kisame pinned her wrists together with one hand just half of a second before his fist connected high on her cheek, looking wholly infuriated while doing so. "Are you fucking _shitting_ me?! You believe I think so low of _both_ of us that I'd play nice just to get into your pants?!" he spat, eyes flashing angrily, " _Fuck_ you! Fuck you and your shitty _self esteem_ \- if I just wanted a quick fuck then I'd just pick up some cheap slut on the street, so quit fucking around with trying to play this off."

It… It was too much.

Kana's head dropped to the side with a defeated sigh, and she pressed her lips together in a tight line to keep them trembling as tears blurred her vision.

She was just supposed to be Itachi's doctor.

That's all.

The plan had been so simple.

Why did things need to become complicated?

"Do you remember… How, yesterday, Hidan and Kakuzu were trying to collect a bounty when they died?" she whispered, feeling her damnable tears slip free and roll down into her hairline.

Kisame hummed in acknowledgement, looking somewhat startled at the sudden change, and shifted so that his weight was braced on his forearms, as opposed to her wrists, "Don't tell me you're upset over the zombie combo…"

She shook her head. Normally Kana would have laughed and made a joke about him being dense but, when she tried opening her mouth, a choked sob finally forced its way up. "Asuma's squad… He was in charge of these two chunin… They were two of my best friends b-back home – if they killed… If Asuma was killed, then… Th-that means…"

"That Hidan and Kakuzu killed them, too," Kisame finished, voice solemn, "I get it. I understand." He lowered his head so that his face was buried in the crook of her neck, "I'm sorry."

With his hold having loosened, Kana wrapped both of her arms around his shoulders and pulled sharply so that he dropped down. The sheer enormity of Kisame's body nearly winded her, and her bruises screamed in protest, but she was absolutely certain that, without the security of that warmth and weight, Kana was going to completely fall to pieces.

As if understanding what she wanted, Kisame slid his arms underneath her shoulders to squeeze tightly.

When her eyes screwed shut against the inescapable pain of losing her friends, she tried to remember their faces. She tried to remember how Kotetsu's smile was always a little crooked, with the left side rising just a little more than the right, and how Izumo's smiles were always quiet and warm, eyes crinkling at just the edges. She tried to remember how their voices sounded – so different from one another, just like them.

As much as her mind _knew_ that the characteristics existed, that her dearest friends harbored those qualities that made them into Tsunade's playful magpies, it couldn't bring up the images. Kana couldn't remember the way that they smelled, or how they looked, or how they sounded, or how it felt to just have them lighten the mood just by being there.

It had been too long.

Kana cried until she couldn't breathe.

* * *

 **Note** : Sooooo that all happened.

Good lord, I make these two outstandingly vulgar. Anyways, thanks to everyone who has been reviewing this story, both in PM and on the review page :D Reviews make me really happy lol.


	12. Chapter 12

"Do you think that Iwagakure has something to do Anbu disappearances?"

Kana poked her head around the metal wall of the bathroom doorway to narrow her eyes at Kisame, who was back to sitting in the room's one easy chair with Samehada in hand, "… _What_?"

He looked up from the scale he was currently cleaning, "A bunch of your old comrades go missing, _you_ go missing, then you come back suddenly insisting that we go capture the Four Tails as if you ever gave a damn about it in the past?" Kisame raised an eyebrow in time with his lips stretching into a curious grin, "I may not be a _tactical genius_ like Itachi, but I can put shit together."

A large part of her said to just blow him off, that it wasn't his business, and she nearly did. Kana had every intention to just deal with this on her own, to investigate the missing shinobi on her own time whenever Itachi was feeling well enough for her to not have to worry about him being so far away. As her mouth opened to explain that, though, Kana remembered what Kisame had basically shouted in her face nearly an hour before.

She sighed and wrung the last of the excess water out of her hair before stepping back to start drying the rest of her body off. "I'm trying to get an idea of where the missing ninja are," Kana raised her voice a tad so he could hear her as she rubbed the towel over her chest and shoulders, "I plan on looking for intel on any shinobi declared MIA in the last year while I'm there."

"What, exactly, does the Hidden Stone have to do with them?"

Popping her head around the corner once her legs were dried, she made a face, "I thought you said you could 'Put shit together.' You read the file – use your damn brain instead of making me explain everything."

Kisame frowned for a second before slipping back an amused smirk, shaking his head as he looked back down to continue attending to his sword, "All that pretty is _wasted_ on a wicked woman like you."

Kana huffed and wrapped her body in the towel before stepping out of the bathroom, "Think of it as my only redeeming quality. Where are my clothes?" she shifted uncomfortably when she couldn't find her backpack anywhere.

"Probably still in Itachi's room," the man hummed, that stupid shit-eating grin expanding as he spoke, "Wasn't sure what was important, and what wasn't, so I just gave him your bag and let _him_ sort it out."

Swirling eyes narrowed as her irritation spiked, "You're a real bastard, you know that?"

The everlasting monsoon that seemed to drench the Hidden Rain made the temperature considerably lower than the rest of the countries, which were warming with the changing season, and the village's industrial-style metal buildings didn't do shit for keeping its citizens warm. Kana wanted her clothes, and she wanted them _now_.

He finally looked up from Samehada, roll of cloth in hand, and his eyes flashed mischievously, "Is there a _problem_ , little bird?"

The kunoichi's scowl deepened as she turned on her heel and marched to the door, angrily yanking it open and slamming it shut behind her. Itachi's room was only a few doors down, so it wasn't as if Kana had to walk very far, she was just irritated at the enjoyment Kisame got out of the situation. She hated being cold, he knew that, and it was probably some stupid ruse that he was hoping was going to get her riled up enough for her to get close enough to grab her and tackle her to the floor.

Yeah, she was onto his games.

When Kana entered Itachi's room, three things bothered her. The first one was that he was _still_ sleeping, even though it was late morning. The second was that he wasn't as bundled up in his normal human-sushi style like she had initially thought, but was curled up under multiple blankets and comforters that quivered subtly. The third problem was that it didn't even seem to register with him that anyone had walked in.

Irritation fled her body as adrenaline kicked in. She tied her towel into a knot that wouldn't come loose and rushed over to drop next to his futon, leaning over and pulling the lasagna-like blanket system he had going on to look at his face.

Itachi was drenched in sweat, hair plastered to his abnormally pale cheeks and forehead, and his eyes were screwed shut. Kana didn't need to lean in to hear how the man was struggling to breathe, each puff of breath coming out with an accompanying noisy wheeze.

"Tachi?" she touched his pulse point, which thundered angrily beneath her fingertips, "Tachi, look at me."

He whimpered and coughed while raising a trembling hand to lift the edge of the stack of blankets back over his head. Kana stopped him, nearly wincing at how freezing his fingers were, and called his name again. When Itachi didn't respond, she pushed his sweat-soaked hair away from his face to gently tug an eyelid open. His normally pretty, pearly black eyes had a glazed look over them, and her stomach dropped painfully; how long had he been like this?

Kana's mind kicked into overdrive as she jumped up to her feet, dashing over to the adjoining bathroom to get a lukewarm shower going. Itachi responded better to environmental changes than medicine, so she was hoping on that staying true as she darted back to where he was trying to burrow back into the blankets in a vain attempt at getting warm.

He flinched and groaned loudly in protest to the kunoichi pulling his stack of blankets away, acting as if he wasn't even aware of what was going on as he was tugged onto shaking legs. Having lost most of the muscle mass she used to pride herself on, Kana struggled a bit with carrying him, but eventually was able to half-drag Itachi to the bathroom and haul him into the shower stall just before he vomited what looked like a mixture of food, tissue and blood.

A string of garbled syllables tumbled out of Itachi's mouth when the stream hit his still-clothed back, though none of it was coherent enough for her to figure out what he was trying to say while she knelt down to sit next to him. Judging from his tone and the way he attempted to push away with feeble hands, he wasn't pleased with being suddenly drenched to the bone.

Kana leaned against the wall and wrapped her arms around his shoulders when he sagged into her; she'd take his clothes off later but, right now, she wanted to wait until his body adjusted to the change.

A thin, pathetic whine followed a rather intense coughing fit that splattered blood onto Kana's arm. Itachi was acting like a small child with the flu, which was probably the most frightening part of this. There were times where he pouted and made faces and complained about taking his medicine or being prodded right after waking up in the morning, a trait that Kana _swore_ Neji had somehow picked up from him, but he never _whined_. The last time she saw Itachi like this was when they were about ten, and he had come down with a vicious case of Strep that had been contracted from Sasuke…

Her mind flashed back to how pale and somber he was the day before. Kana had written it off as him just feeling a bit chilled and lost in thought after the meeting with Pain, and now she was kicking herself in the ass for not paying more attention. While she was moaning like a bitch in heat on Kisame's lap, Itachi was coming down with a dangerously high fever that was probably close to brain-damaging.

 _'I'm so sorry, Tachi…'_ she thought sadly, pushing his bangs out of his face as he whimpered into her shoulder, ' _I'm sorry I'm such a careless person.'_

Eventually the crease in Itachi's brow softened, and he stopped shaking. His expression was still a little dazed when the color began to return to his cheeks, but his eyes followed Kana's finger when she experimentally waved it in front of his face, so she tugged off his shirt and waited for him to adjust. When it was clear that Itachi could handle the exposure, she opened up his pants and pulled them off, too.

Cold air rushed to meet Kana's wet skin as soon as she stepped through the shower door. She could feel millions of tiny goosebumps pop up on her arms and legs, spreading to her back and belly the second she dropped the drenched towel in favor of a dry one still on the rack. Kana wrung out the towel and Itachi's clothes before giving herself a perfunctory drying that was mostly to prevent her from dripping water all over the room as she rushed over to her backpack.

Just like Kisame said, everything was in the bag. Why Itachi didn't take his medicine out was absolutely _beyond_ her, but she decided it was something to worry about later. Kana grabbed the bottles she needed, taking out a couple acetaminophen tablets and pouring a small cup-full of medicine, before picking up her canteen and darting back to the shower.

Itachi's head followed her movements as she carefully maneuvered around the lukewarm stream of water, lest the pills in her hand dissolve. His eyes looked a little more focused than before but Kana knew that the knot in her stomach wouldn't go away until he was back to normal.

"Tachi?" She set the canteen down to push a lock of hair that slipped over his face, "I need you to take these. Can you do that for me?"

He nodded weakly, eyes sliding shut as he gingerly pushed himself up to sit against the wall, as opposed to half-laying on the floor. Despite the movement being subtle, it still left Itachi a little breathless so Kana waited a few moments for him to recover before handing him the small cup of medicine.

"Keep drinking," she instructed while soaping up a washcloth, "Small sips."

Itachi pouted a little, turning his head down and peeking up from behind his offensively long lashes as a show of how he didn't _really_ want to drink any water, but did as she said without complaining. The reaction brought a small sense of comfort to Kana – pouting meant that he had the _energy_ to pout, which meant that he was beginning to feel better.

She checked his pulse every few minutes while washing Itachi's arms and legs. The tightening in her chest finally began to loosen when he shifted to help her without sending his heart rate through the roof like before, even if it was still a _little_ too fast for her liking.

It was a few more minutes before he took a long drink of water and cleared his throat to say anything.

"I'm sorry," Itachi whispered, watching the water swirl around the drain.

Kana sighed and wrung out the washcloth so that it could better wipe away the invisible soap residue on his skin, "I just don't understand why you didn't come to me."

"I searched for you for a while," he explained quietly, solemnly, "When I finally found you, you were asleep and Kisame was carrying you back to his room."

Huh. That sounded absurdly close to those stories of cavemen whacking their desired women on the back of the head with a stick and dragging them back to their caves. Ignoring the similarity for now, Kana frowned and rubbed at a knot that was nestled just below Itachi's shoulder blade, "Tachi. I don't care if I'm passed out, or in the middle of training, if you're feeling sick then you _need to tell me_. What good will engineering Sasuke to your design be if you get killed off by a fever, because you're too polite to wake me up?"

It had slipped out – that wasn't the way she had wanted to word it.

Itachi's eyes flew open, suddenly sharp and alert, as his head jerked up to look at her in stark horror, "Engineer..? You think I'm _designing_ my br-"

"Itachi… It wasn't supposed to come out like that," Kana's eyes dropped to the washcloth as she wrung it out again. She applied a little too much force, and the bunched up cloth snapped in two under the pressure; little fabric shreds fluttered to the shower floor before the kunoichi just threw the ruined washcloth down with a wet ' _slap_.'

"But you still meant it," he said in a low, somber voice.

She sighed and stood up, turning the shower faucet to stop the stream before stepping out of the metal stall. When Kana was wrapped in the towel she had used earlier, she turned back to help Itachi to his feet, "I can't imagine what it must feel like," she murmured while helping him to sit on the closed toilet, carefully paying attention to his body language in case he needed to throw up again, "But you can't pretend to not be self-aware. Sasuke is the person he is because you _made_ him that way."

Itachi didn't answer; pearly black eyes were downcast and hidden by long lashes that cast small shadows over his skin. He remained silent throughout the entire time Kana spent drying him off, and he was unresponsive to her hands when she began to take his vitals.

For the most part the shinobi was in a substantially better condition than he had been found in nearly an hour ago, but Kana would be lying if she tried to say that he was well enough to travel through the rainy country. Itachi's heart rate was still too high whenever he tried to move on his own, his breathing was noticeably labored, and his face continued to look exhausted and pallid. When she touched his cheeks and forehead with the back of her hand he still felt a little warm, meaning his fever wasn't completely gone, but it was definitely out of the danger zone.

"Was I wrong?" he finally whispered.

Kana could hear the guilt and sadness in his voice, not needing to see the hollow expression in his eyes, or the slight tremble of his thin shoulders, to know that she had stepped on an insecurity Itachi held; an insecurity that ran deep.

She dropped down to kneel in front of him, turning her face up to his so that their foreheads touched, and tugged the towel around Itachi's shoulders, "I think… I think it's too late to start asking if things should have been done differently."

Slender eyebrows knitted as Itachi's eyes screwed shut and his lips parted to release a ragged breath. Kana knew that the pain he was feeling was nearly palpable, that she probably had made his guilt and sorrow even worse, but she couldn't lie to him. Not about this.

One tattooed hand rose to smooth over his cheek and cup it as a thumb tenderly brushed under Itachi's eye, wiping away the lone tear that had squeezed past his lashes, "Please know that whatever happens, whatever you do," Kana closed her own eyes, "You will always be my best friend, and I will always love you."

Itachi's only answer was a heartbreaking sob.

* * *

"That's a pretty song."

Unaware anyone had been around to hear her idle humming, Kana looked up from _Icha Icha Dynamic_ to see Konan lingering in the doorway to Itachi's room. She wasn't wearing her Akatsuki cloak, which apparently had been covering a rather revealing outfit that wasn't too unlike what she had designed for Kana. It was a backless turtleneck top that exposed her midriff with a zipper over the bust, pants that looked tight enough to be painted on, and an assortment of navel piercings.

And, damn it all if Kana didn't admit that the Rain kunoichi didn't have the body for it.

"Is he alright?" she asked, nodding towards Itachi.

Trying to not let her insecurities shine through, she looked down at the man sleeping peacefully on his futon with fresh sheets, and pushed his bangs out of his face for the umpteenth time.

"Just a little under the weather," Kana kept her voice low as to not wake the slumbering man, "He caught a cold from the rain. That's all."

Konan she nodded understandingly before stepping into the small room, "I was hoping to give you this before you departed," she handed a familiar black and red cloak forward, "You never came by my chamber last night…" Orange eyes narrowed as they fell on the torn skin around Kana's mouth and shoulder, "Were you attacked?"

Whoops. Kana lifted a hand to administer healing chakra to her lips and shrugged with a noncommittal hum. When Konan lifted a slender eyebrow, her concerned gaze melting into one of suspicion, the Leaf-nin had half of a mind to punch her in the teeth. It just wasn't _fair_ that someone was _this_ fucking gorgeous even when they were looking at you with eyes that screamed 'You're a liar.' She wanted Konan to have _some_ sort of a flaw just so Kana stopped feeling like a deformed potato.

Konan's eyes gave her a once-over before her frown deepened, focusing on the rather incriminating bites on her shoulder that they both knew could only belong to one particular man.

"I attributed your noticeable weight loss to your increase in height and didn't think much of it at first," her voice was soft but still carried the authority she wielded within the organization as their gazes locked, "But if someone is _attacking_ you-"

Oh, jeeze.

"Ma'am," Kana felt her cheeks heat up as she hastily cut into Konan's sentence, "The reason I didn't come to your room to get my cloak was because I was… Spending… _Alone_ _time_ … With Kisame," she almost balked at the idea of trying to explain this to Konan. Was this what it was like to have a sex talk with your mother? "I think he's got a thing with marking his territory. Shark… Stuff, I guess. I don't know. But that's all. It wasn't… I mean – he wouldn't do… What you're thinking…"

No, this definitely had to be worse than having the birds and the bees chat with your parent. Way worse. Kana silently prayed for the gods she didn't believe in to strike her down right then and there, to just leave nothing but a smoldering pile of ash as her remains.

Unfortunately it seemed that the gods were not feeling very gracious, so she had to deal with her cheeks burning even hotter when Konan gave her a disapproving stare. Maybe she'd just roast to death.

"You'd risk a pregnancy in a situation like this?" she asked coolly.

Itachi squirmed when Kana accidentally pulled his hair in a knee-jerk response, mumbling something in his sleep about broken hairbrushes before rolling over and taking more of the blanket with him. The sight set a thin layer of calm over the kunoichi's mind - though it was more like stretching some plastic wrap over a river rapid. Even so, she was glad to see that Itachi was feeling well enough to start his human-sushi roll process.

With her thoughts somewhat more relaxed, Kana deadpanned against the burn of shame and looked up to meet Konan's gaze, "No. I can't have children."

The Rain-nin's mouth opened for a brief moment in the slightest of jaw drops, "Oh," she said flatly, "Then, I apologize for assuming-"

"It's fine. You had legitimate concerns," Kana finally took the Akatsuki cloak from Konan in hopes to change the conversation, noticing that there wasn't any sign of repair on the chest, "This isn't mine, is it?"

Konan's shoulders relaxed as she nodded, seeming grateful for the subject shift, "I told you that I noticed you had grown a little taller since joining so I just took apart the old cloak to use it for repairs later. This is one of my spares."

Grown a little taller? Kana thought back to what she had said earlier and remembered that Konan had mentioned something about a change in height, but had brushed it off without giving it much thought. It wouldn't make sense for Kana to have anything of a growth spurt – not at her age, and definitely not to the point where it would warrant her needing to wear one of _Konan_ 's cloaks, who was nearly six inches taller than she was.

Kana set down _Icha Icha_ and stood up for comparison. Sure enough, the Rain-nin was only a couple of inches taller than her now; how had she not noticed the day before?

"Um, well, thank you," she muttered awkwardly, "I should go pack our things for when Itachi wakes up, so…"

Konan took the hint and nodded understandingly before backing out of the room, "I understand. If you need anything, please, feel free to come back to this place," she winked as the same small smile from yesterday played at her lips, "I could use the company."

Without waiting for an answer she dipped out of the room and left Kana to sink back to the floor, head spinning.

* * *

"Milady, the Kazekage has responded to our information request," Shikaku shut the door behind him with a soft ' _click'_ while giving a half-hearted nod in greeting to the guard on duty.

Tsunade looked up from the file she had been pouring over with a frown, "Then hurry up and hand it over, Shikaku, I _don't_ have all _day._ "

The jonin commander fought the urge to grimace as he crossed the room to pass on the sealed message; why this woman was perpetually pissed off was something he simply couldn't comprehend. Her already unhappy demeanor darkened as she opened the scroll and read its contents.

A thick, heavy silence blanketed the room for what felt like forever, neither shinobi speaking a word even after Tsunade set the scroll down on her desk. Shikaku didn't need to ask what the message said, he could tell just by watching the Hokage's face.

"I want you to collaborate with Commander Sato to draw up two teams," she finally said, "Both need to be composed of skilled trackers, as well as medics."

The jonin frowned and crossed his arms, "You want to use the Anbu squad as bait."

Tsunade sighed and reached for the ever-present bottle of sake in her desk drawer, "We don't have a _choice_ , Shikaku. We need to find out who's doing this, and where, so we can stop them."

He understood, he really did; this wasn't a situation where they held the luxury of traditional tracking methods. Still, Shikaku didn't feel comfortable at the idea of using good men and women as sacrificial lambs.

"This won't be the same," Tsunade assured him, as if reading his thoughts, "Both teams will know what to expect and, now, we have support from the Hidden Sand's Counter-Terrorism Division."

Taking a step back towards the door, he nodded, "Of course, Lady Hokage. I trust your judgment."

This entire situation was such a _drag_.

* * *

 **Note** : Y'all are just the nicest damn reviewers, you know that? Seriously. I love reviews, even if you've already commented on the story before :D I'm having such a fun time talking to some of you in PMs, too 3 So thank you so much!

Also, I have to get ready for PAX South so updates are probably going to be a little erratic as that draws closer. I have a lot of work to get done beforehand D:


	13. Chapter 13

_Red._

 _Everything was red._

 _Kana dropped to her knees and reached out to the nearest body that lay crumpled on the ground, skin torn open and organs strewn over his belly._

 _He was dead._

 _She crawled over to the next body and tried to block out the pungent stench of blood._

 _Dead._

 _Pushing herself onto shaky legs, Kana turned to and fro – wet hair slapping against her face and leaving red streaks in its wake as she did so – in a desperate attempt at finding any sign of life. Kotetsu. Izumo. Torune. Sai and Lee… Everyone was dead._

 _"Why?"_

 _She turned to the all too familiar voice, nearly stumbling over the shredded remains of Guy's chest in the process, "Neji?"_

 _He was lying in the ever-growing pool of blood that seemed to stretch on for miles. Kana felt her chest clench painfully as she rushed over to her most precious person, who was looking up at her with a fury that burned hot in his pearly white eyes._

 _"W-why did you **help** them," he heaved, blood pouring from his mouth, "Why w-w-would you-"_

 _"No – I-I'm just a spy!" Kana sputtered helplessly as her hands flew through familiar hand seals._

 _The chakra wouldn't come._

 _A dry, choked laugh came from her side. "You were always useless," Kakashi sneered, blood spurting out of his torn and broken throat._

 _The kunoichi's throat tightened and she frantically formed more seals._

 _It was useless. Her chakra was gone._

 _"Y-you couldn't s-s-save me," Itachi hissed, "You let Orochimaru h-have my brother. Now yours is **dead**."_

 _Kana looked back down._

 _The hatred was gone. Everything was gone._

 _Neji was dead._

 _An agonized scream tore its way up her throat but came out as a silent wheeze._

 _"You did well," Pain was suddenly by her side, with Madara and Zetsu in tow._

 _"But there's still more work to be done. Come, now," Konan said with a soft smile as she helped Kana to her feet._

 _She turned to take in her surroundings._

 _Shredded bowels. Bodies cleaved in two. Snapped spines. Organs slung about._

 _Everyone she ever loved, or cared for. Her companions and fellow soldiers._

 _Dead._

 _This was her work._

 _Kana killed her people._

* * *

"It's alright… Up…"

Kana's arm snapped out to grab the wrist of the man that was trying to grab her, twisting it back as her other hand reached under the pillow for the kunai she slept with. Blankets pooled around her feet when she flung him back and jumped out of the bed away from the other chakra signature that made an attempt to hold her shoulder.

The man that had grabbed her groaned and coughed at the rough treatment but, otherwise, was unphased. He held out his arms like one would to a wild animal and took a step forward, "Kana, the nightmare is over. You're alright – everything is fine."

As Kana's grip tightened on the kunai that was raised defensively in front of her body, her vision started to clear and she began to take in her surroundings. She was in a small room with concrete walls and carpeted floors. There were two large beds, one of which Kana was standing behind, and a door on the far side of the room; Itachi was standing off to the side in what she knew was an intentional maneuver to not block any exits.

Itachi…

Understanding settled in and Kana was brought back to Earth in time for her to feel the cold sweat that drenched her body and made her hair cling to her skin – that must have been the wet feeling she had felt in her dream.

The dream…

The kunai clattered to the floor when she reached out to grasp Itachi's outstretched arms, dropping heavily onto the edge of the bed that was probably his. Every inch of her body trembled as Kana tried to push away the images of Neji's corpse that flashed through her mind.

Pearly black eyes gazed down in understanding as Itachi touched their foreheads together, still holding her forearms, "You're alright," he repeated, "Whatever it was, it's over."

Kana took a deep breath to get her frantic, panicked breathing under control even as her heart continued to thunder painfully against her ribcage. She focused on the points where they were connected, on the feeling of Itachi's hands, that were somehow smooth and soft despite undergoing the same rigorous training that the trio went through together. They were cold against her overheated skin, providing a soothing sensation that seemed to radiate up to Kana's shoulders.

After several agonizingly long minutes that felt as if they crawled on forever, the kunoichi's almost violent shaking slowed to a slight tremble. The cold sweat that coated her skin in a thin sheen had begun to dry into a layer of sticky salt that was beginning to itch and make her clothing cling uncomfortably to her body, so Kana released a heavy sigh and released Itachi's forearms, hands sliding down to his so she could gently squeeze his hands in a silent thank-you.

"I'm gonna take a quick shower," she said hoarsely before rising to her feet.

Itachi stepped back to give her space, pearly black eyes full of concern, "Would you like me to -"

Raising a hand and waving it half-heartedly, Kana shook her head and began to walk to the bathroom, "I'll be okay."

There was something that made the thought of showering with Itachi extremely uncomfortable, what with Kisame being in the room, and all. Even if it wasn't anything sexual or romantic, just something they've done for each other since they were kids, it still felt awkward to share that kind of intimacy with her best friend when there was someone else around.

Thankfully Itachi wasn't the type to press the issue and let her pass by without an argument.

The bathroom light was harsh and bright when Kana flipped the switch, and the still-shaky shinobi flinched at the sudden change. She made quick work of her jumpsuit, the style Konan had picked being one that made undressing relatively easy, while the shower heated, avoiding looking too hard in the mirror at what she knew wasn't a pretty sight.

The water was almost scalding hot when she stepped into the shower tub, shocking her nerves into a heavy numbness that lasted a few uncomfortably long moments. Still, it was a welcoming sensation over the feeling of sticky, itchy cold that clung to her skin. Kana took a few minutes to let the warmth soothe the tense muscles in her shoulder and back, closing her eyes and leaning against the wall while relishing in the feeling of water rolling down her back in shuddering rivulets.

When the heat had relaxed her to the point where it didn't feel like Kana's entire body was stiff as a board, she picked up a washcloth and rubbed it over the complimentary bar of generic soap. It didn't take long to clean off the sweat, so it wasn't more than a few minutes before the kunoichi was cleaned off and drying herself off with the towel she had used not six hours earlier.

Of course, her jumpsuit and underwear were still pretty sweat-soaked so Kana opted in to just hanging them over the shower curtain rod and wrapping herself in the towel before parking her butt on the toilet to wait. She didn't need it to be completely dry, just not horribly gross.

Then again... It would probably help to wash the sweat out so it didn't stink. Did this place had a washing facility?

 _'Doubt it, given that there's a laundromat down the road...'_ she thought solemnly. She'd just have to wash it in the sink.

The effort Kana put into keeping her gaze off of her reflection was soon foiled as she started rubbing the bar of soap into her clothes; every few moments her eyes would dart up to the mirror before flitting back down to the soapy water.

Kisame's comments had been one thing but the talk with Konan made her start paying attention to her outward appearance, which had definitely not improved in the last year. Kana's figure had somehow gained curves, albeit subtle ones, so her hipbones stuck out sharply alongside her ribs and collarbone; when she turned and moved her arms a certain way, her shoulder blades protruded in an exaggerated manner that definitely wasn't a sign of good health.

While women tended to freak out over their weight, doing everything they could to keep it down and finding themselves pleased when they lost a pound, Kana's weight loss wasn't doing any favors for her appearance when her bones were beginning to jut out like they were. This entire time she was worried about making sure Itachi was getting what he needed, when Kana probably should have been worrying about herself. Now she looked like a goddamn skeleton with marred, white flesh stretched over it.

What part of her wasn't grossed out my her appearance was disappointed in herself for being so careless. How could she expect to take care of Itachi if she couldn't even take care of herself?

Itachi...

Kana frowned at the fabric being sloshed around in the sudsy water. He was getting worse, fast. The changes in his medicine made before leaving for the Leaf seemed to help at first, but he was having more heart palpitations and nausea lately. And then there was his fever at the hideout... It was getting harder and harder to keep him feeling comfortable these days.

 _"You couldn't save me."_

His words, choked out, echoed through her head; everything in the dream did. Kana could still smell the horrifically familiar stench of blood that hung heavy in the air, like a sea of death that drenched everyone she cared for in the evidence of her violence. She wasn't the type to think too deeply into nightmares - you couldn't, in their line of work where nightmares came frequently - but this one struck too close to home. Normally her nightmares were flashbacks, her memories coming back to haunt her.

This... This had been different.

Kana could see the grisly scene in vivid detail still. Every intestine strung about, every ruptured organ, every shredded chest cavity... Swirling eyes screwed shut to block out the image, but it only seemed to magnify every painful detail as she wrung out her jumpsuit and underwear to drape it over the shower curtain rod to dry.

They were reporting to Danzo every few months with Akatsuki intel, but... Were they doing more harm than good?

She sank into a crouching position, face buried in her knees.

Kotetsu and Izumo... Asuma... Shikaku's kid...

Kana acquired bounty information for the organization - she helped them get their hands on the jinchuriki by delivering information on each village's security system. Even if she made sure to leave some parts out and sabotaged some pieces so that some members had difficult times, the kunoichi was an important part to their system - an essential piece to the machine.

If something happened to her comrades because of the Akatsuki, was it on _her_ hands for helping them?

"Little bird, I thought _Itachi_ was the brooding type but is there _ever_ a moment where you aren't depressed?" Kisame shut the door with a soft ' _click_ ' as he spoke.

She looked up from her knees, "Yeah, when you piss me off. Why aren't you sleep-"

Kisame cut her off by dropping his hand on her head and roughly ruffling her hair, "It seems like neither of us can sleep," he murmured as he slid down the wall to sit next to her, "Prince Charming looks like he's about to jump out of his skin, which is putting _me_ on edge. I liked him better when he was the Ice Queen."

"Is he a prince or a queen?" Kana mumbled, not bothering to add any mirth to her voice as she did so, "Tell him I'm fine. I'm just waiting for my things to dry."

There was a long silence that told her that the Kiri-nin didn't believe that she was actually alright. Kisame exhaled heavily through his nose and shifted so that he was sagging against the wall with one leg bent, and he ruffled her hair again when she buried her face back into her knees.

"Was it about those chunin?" he finally asked. Kana didn't lift her head from where they were trying to mesh into the skin of her legs, but nodded somewhat and gave a lukewarm hum as confirmation, so Kisame's hand dropped from her head to her shoulder with a squeeze, "I get them, too. Itachi used to have nightmares all the time for the first few years. I could hear him through the walls when we still had separate rooms like the other teams - damn near killed me a few times when I tried to wake him up from them after we started sharing rooms."

A dark, humorless grin pulled at her lips at his words, "Another lesson, senpai?"

The hand he had on her shoulder flinched, "Call me senpai again and I'll shove my dick so far down your throat, you won't remember how to breathe." His words were rude, but the tone they were spoken in told Kana that the threat held no real weight, so she gave a weak chuckle that was really just for his benefit.

"Now, if you wanna call me _master_... I wouldn't be opposed," Kisame added as an afterthought, his smirk audible in the playful tone.

This time her laugh, albeit soft, held some sort of warmth as she turned her head slightly to peer up at his face through the black locks of hair that covered most of her face, "I wouldn't count on it, asshole."

Kisame's smirk expanded and he pinched Kana's shoulder hard enough for her to wince and punch him in the side in retaliation, "It's a good thing you can't be a parent," he rubbed his side with the hand that she swatted away, "Your kids would grow up with toilets for mouths."

"You heard that?" she made a face and pushed her hair out of her face so that she could actually see the man that she was talking to.

He shrugged casually, and turned his head up to look at the ceiling, "Just bits and pieces. You talking about ' _Shark stuff_ ' with Konan, her giving you a cloak, you not being able to have babies-"

Kana narrowed her eyes, "Kisame, that was literally the _entire_ conversation."

"Yeah, well, it's hard to not eavesdrop when the building is made of sound-amplifying sheets of metal," he said defensively, grin widening as his eyes flitted to the side to meet hers, "I gotta say it took a load off _my_ chest."

She opened her mouth to snap at Kisame, only to shut it upon realizing she really couldn't hold it against him - a kid in their situation? Never mind the fact that he'd probably make one hell of a giant kid that would be a _nightmare_ to carry, and Kana was sort of planning on _dying_ somewhat soon...

Though, the more her mind dwelled on the thought, she couldn't help but admit that they'd probably make a beautifully exotic child. With Kisame's sharp facial features and blue skin, and her color-changing hair... Kana wondered if it would come out with his piercingly white eyes, or the black eyes that were common among Shimi clan members.

"Not that I'm complaining, or anything, but does your freaky chakra have something to do with it? Some sort of side effect?" he asked in a nonchalant voice that was betrayed by the guarded look on his face; he probably assumed that this was a touchy subject.

The kunoichi made a noncommittal sound and wrapped a drying lock of hair around her finger, idly twirling it as her gaze dropped to her feet, "Nah, it's because of all the time I spent in Anbu. We weren't allowed to marry, or have kids, while in the service so we all had to take birth control. Men, too, not just the women," Kana frowned at the memory of being routinely stuck with a needle every three months during her physicals, "I joined when I was still a child, but the rule still stood since it applied to everyone. It was pretty harsh stuff, I guess. Stunted my growth, I never fully developed..." She trailed off with a shrug.

Kisame shook his head with a chuckle, "Man, that's _fucked_ up," he laughed.

"The expected lifespan in Anbu is typically five to ten years, assuming we don't return to normal duty," Kana murmured, recalling the dozens of funerals she had attended in her lifetime, "Why would they bother worrying about what could happen in the long run? Besides..." she looked up at her still-damp jumpsuit, "We're just weapons for our villages. People like us don't _create_ life. We _take_ it."

There was a long pause where neither of them said anything, the only sounds breaking the heavy silence being the soft sounds of their out of sync breathing. For the first time since Kisame entered the bathroom she rocked back on her heels to fall onto her but, dropping into a sitting position and stretching her legs out, which had begun to ache from being folded up.

"You keep yourself all locked up like a safe for almost a whole year, and _this_ is the shit you finally decide to share?" The Mist-nin chortled, but the mirth had long since left the eyes that peered down at Kana darkly.

She frowned and released the lock of hair she had been twirling to trace the tattoo on her thigh, following the intricate swirls and black symbols that curled around her leg, "What do you care?"

Kisame sighed heavily before the hand on her shoulder reached up to grip Kana's hair and roughly pull her head up to look back at him, "Stop fucking asking that. Right now," he growled, tightening his grip on her hair when she grabbed at his hand in a vain attempt at peeling his fingers open.

"Shit. Fine," she hissed, "Wanna know something, then? I don't like having my hair _yanked_ on like that - it makes me feel like my neck is about to be snapped and it actually scares the hell out of me. Let go."

Releasing her hair, concern momentarily flashing across his face, the man's frown deepened thoughtfully, "When we had -"

"No, it wasn't the same..." Kana tied her towel so that it wouldn't fall off before climbing over his legs and grabbing a fistful of hair to tug, "I'm just holding your head in place and even if I turn it," she explained as she tilted Kisame's head back, "It's more of just a... A guiding movement, I guess. But if I suddenly jerk it..." She yanked his head to the side, eliciting a surprised gasp and a rather painful grip on her wrist in a knee-jerk reaction, "Get it?"

Kisame grimaced at the hands-on guide and nodded silently, understandably on edge from the rough treatment. A thought occurred to Kana when her hand dropped to rest in their shared laps, and she narrowed her eyes in response, "How have you gone all this time without someone saying something?" Surely _something_ like this had to have come up at some point, what with his brutish treatment of others.

The anxious frown that came from his body's response to being manhandled turned into an expression that looked both embarrassed and condescending, "When the fuck do you think something like _that_ would have come up?" he chuckled with a grin that didn't make it to his eyes.

"Like... I don't know, didn't someone say something when you were simulating what it would be like to be a horny rabbit?"

Kisame blinked and his eyebrows knitted together in a look of disgust, "Don't _ever_ say shit like that ever again."

She rolled her eyes and poked his forehead with a laugh that was just as lukewarm as his earlier one, "Whatever. That's not the point. Didn't anyone complain when you were banging them, or just messing around?" she asked, eyes still narrowed.

"Of course not," he answered as if she were asking if the sky was pink, "Why the hell would I start pulling some random whore's hair?"

Fighting the urge to feel miffed at his labeling of his sex partners, Kana pouted, "Because you're always _grabbing_ at me, and shit. And you pulled my hair at the hide-" her words came to a screeching halt when Kisame's expression melted into an incredulous 'Are you fucking kidding me' look, "What?"

"When you're fucking a slut in a whorehouse, you keep your hands to yourself," he explained like he was teaching someone how to use shuriken, "You don't do crap like that."

Oh - he actually meant prostitutes with his earlier comment. The part of the kunoichi that felt insulted felt relief as another question bubbled to the surface of her consciousness, "While I'm sure you have plenty of tips to give on brothel etiquette, I was talking about the people you actually get intimate with. Or were you just not rough with your girlfriends, and I'm just the unlucky one?"

A deep, throaty laugh resonated in her ears as Kisame's response threatened to wake up everyone within a thirty-mile radius, "Girlfriends? _Girlfriends?!_ Yes, little bird, I made _sweet_ , _tender_ _love_ to -"

"You don't have to be a fucking asshole about it," Kana snapped, angry at both her own embarrassment and the sarcasm dripping from the mountainous man's voice, "Fucking dick."

The condescending expression from earlier, mitigated by what looked like an incredulous embarrassment, returned to Kisame's face when he seemed to finally realize that she wasn't joking, "You're actually serious? _Look_ at me, little bird. I don't get _lovers_ , I pay women to let me stick my cock in them for a handful of minutes while I pretend to not notice how relieved they look when I put them on their hands and knees."

Even as he kept his tone nonchalant as he spoke, Kana could hear the twinge of shame in Kisame's voice, and her stomach twisted in response. She didn't mean to upset him with her question - she was legitimately curious. Still, it was obvious in the way his brow furrowed, and the muscle over his jaw clenched, that she had found herself basically tap-dancing on a nerve that struck pretty deep.

Her lips parted as Kana tried to say something to make him feel better, but realized pretty quickly that she had absolutely no clue as to what to say in a situation like this, and it probably just looked like her jaw had dropped. The silence began to fill with a heavy tension, though, as they both just stared at each other, and it was beginning to weigh down on her chest like a physical weight.

So she acted on a whim.

Kana leaned in and planted a chaste kiss onto Kisame's mouth.

A startled grunt got trapped in the back of his throat as he twisted his face away and roughly shoved her back so that her back hit the cold plastic cabinet that ' _thunked_ ' loudly subsequently. When she gave him a questioning look that did nothing to properly show just how much his reaction had shocked her, Kisame wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and scowled angrily.

"I wasn't asking for a _pity fuck_ ," he snarled, "Close your fucking legs and put on some damn _clothes_."

While her knees snapped together upon being reminded that her panties were slung over the shower rod next to her athletic bra and jumpsuit, the kunoichi just gaped and didn't move from where she was sitting against the cabinet. The intensity of Kisame's glare was pinning her down, and she felt helpless against it as her mind whirled and desperately grasped for something to stop him from leaving as he began to rise to his feet.

"That's not... I-I wouldn't..." Kana grabbed the hand closest to her and, getting on her knees for leverage, pulled Kisame back down from his half-standing position so that he was seated against the wall, "My name isn't Kana!"

It had been the first thing that jumped into her head and, as a result, tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop it. Even so, it seemed to have had the reaction that she had been intending, because Kisame froze and just blinked for a few long moments.

"...What?" he asked, eyes narrowing in confusion.

Fuck it. Kana wanted to prove that she wasn't just throwing herself at him to make him feel good about himself? Then it was time to play the honesty game. She sat back on her heels and gnawed at the inside of her cheek as she tried to keep her eyes locked on Kisame's.

"My name isn't Kana," she repeated, "People born in my clan with my kekkei tota are really rare - we only exist one at a time. The name Kana is just a title given to us, so when you write out our name it writes as 'Sadness.' We only ever able to learn our real names when we're unable to live as shinobi anymore, because we're just supposed to think of ourselves as the Shimi's tools. We're supposed to be like guardians that embody the village's grief, and when we can't fight anymore then theystaboutour eyesbecausetheythink thatindoingsoit'llallowthenextKanatobeborn-"

A large blue hand that nearly enveloped her face slapped over her mouth as Kisame's eyebrow raised curiously, "I get what you're doing," he murmured, "But there's no fucking way I'm going to be able to remember all of this when you're babbling that quickly."

The kunoichi gave him a sheepish look and crawled back over to settle over his lap like she had earlier, feeling the warm feeling of relief spread through her chest when Kisame's hand dropped from her face to rest on the top of her thigh, its pair snaking around her waist. With a sigh to calm her fluttering heartbeat, she placed both of her hands on his broad shoulders, "When I get upset, I stress-eat. But if I get too stressed, I forget to eat. My favorite food is anything barbecue - Leaf style. I don't like Suna's barbecue. They use dry spices instead of sauces and that's weird."

Kisame hummed and nipped at the side of her face with a smirk, "I like shellfish, especially in soups and with rice," he started, "I like subtle flavors, so I'm with you on Suna's food. Their obsession with spicy and fermented foods is something I will never understand - same with Itachi's love for sweets..." His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he pulled back, "Except for mint. Mint sweets are okay."

She grinned and rested her cheek on his collar, "You look like mint."

A deep chuckle rumbled through Kisame's chest in response, "Do I taste like it?" he asked, laughing again when Kana shook her head, "Too bad." He paused for a moment before the hand on her hip circled her waist, "I wasn't too honest earlier, you know, about the whole lovers thing."

Kana's suddenly heavy eyes slid shut and she shifted on his lap, "Mkay?"

"There was one person that showed interest, back when I was still a shinobi of the Hidden Mist," he murmured before inhaling deeply through his nose, something that she was learning was something he did when he was nervous or thoughtful, "She was one of the ninja I had to kill so the Leaf couldn't get the intel that they were carrying. Nothing ever came of it - I killed her shortly after she asked me if I'd go on a date with her - but I figured, you know, since we're being all _sharing_ and _honest_ and shit -"

"Nah, I understand," she said before yawning.

One of Kisame's hands rose to knock the side of her head, "I'm sorry, am I _boring_ you?! _You're_ the one that started pouring your fucking _heart_ out and -"

Kana groaned and angrily pinched his chest, "Shut _up_ , Kisame. I'm not _bored_ , you're just really warm and comfortable," she gnawed on his collarbone through the black fabric of his shirt to further emphasize her displeasure, "My body's basically become conditioned to fall asleep when you start cuddling."

"We aren't _cuddling_ ," Kisame shot back, sounding almost nauseated at the thought.

Just for the sake of being a complete horse's ass, Kana snuggled closer and wrapped her arms around his neck; he grunted uncomfortably and tried shoving her back, only for her to tighten the hold she had keeping her in place.

It finally seemed to get through Kisame's head that she wasn't going to budge, so he dropped his hands to her thighs with an irritated sigh, "We're _not_."

Even if it was mostly an embarrassed frustration, Kana found herself feeling a little miffed at his tone and released his neck to push herself into a standing position, "Whatever," she muttered as she stepped over his legs to grab at her jumpsuit, "My things are dry. Get out so I can change."

"What, now you're pissed?" she heard Kisame ask with the same agitated tone as before.

The kunoichi pulled her clothes down from the shower rod before turning to glare at him expectantly. She get that he had a reputation to protect, and all, but she wasn't going to have this hot-and-cold crap. He wanted her to stop asking why he gave a damn about certain things? Maybe Kisame should stop acting like showing some goddamn affection was going to spell the end of the world for him.

Why couldn't he just be more like _Raido_?

Kana sighed inwardly; he couldn't be like Raido because he _wasn't_ Raido. It was a well-known fact that the Mist had a pretty brutal system of promoting pre-genin to ranked shinobi in his day, forcing them to slaughter their classmates as their final exam. Kisame probably didn't have a good relationship with his parents as a child, either, if his behavior was anything to go off of. They were two totally different people with different backgrounds, and Kana shouldn't expect them to act the same…

But she missed it. She missed the silent warmth that emanated from Raido every time they were in the same room together. Even if she'd never feel that kind of tenderness again, it didn't mean that her heart didn't ache for it.

"Why the fuck are you _crying_?!"

Kisame's voice snapped her out of her musings, and she reached up to wipe at her cheeks with the back of the hand that wasn't holding her clothes. Sure enough there were two streams of warm tears trickling down her face that transferred onto her fingers. Shit.

Kana looked up from her hand and wiped it on the towel absentmindedly, "Just… Just go," she whispered, hating herself for the way her voice cracked.

The Mist-nin jumped to his feet in a black and blue blur, white eyes flashing angrily in response as they looked down at her, "After all – are you _fucking_ with me?" Kisame paused with an expectant look on his face before releasing a huff and turning for the door, "Fine. Whatever you want."

With a heavy sigh she dropped down on the edge of the tub, letting the towel drop and pool around her feet in a puddle of white fabric.

* * *

 ** _One week later..._**

Kana kicked off of a tree branch to propel herself forward for what was probably the thousandth time in a day in a half. Sweat dripped off of her brow and rolled down her cheek in yet another reminder of how ninja headbands have multiple practical uses, other than protecting your forehead and displaying your village affiliation.

Itachi had been too sick to travel all of the way to Iwa so she had left him with Kisame in the Land of Grass and continued on her own. Of course, that meant that it would take for-fucking-ever for them to actually get to the Four Tails, but Kana didn't really care either way; her objective wasn't getting Roshi.

Flashing her Kurogan again, the kunoichi quickly scanned the immediate area. She had to admit that, even if it meant extra travel time for the group, it was a hell of a lot easier to navigate around Anbu undetected when she was on her own. Usually they would have to make clones that bolted in different directions or rely on Kana's teleportation to move fast enough to lose whoever was on her trail.

On her own, though? Border patrol was child's play.

Something off to the side caught her attention, and the kunoichi dropped to a crouch with her hands out to make the sudden halt easier. It had been just a flicker – something that Kana almost missed – but there was definitely someone nearby.

That wasn't why she had stopped, though.

Black eyes carefully searched the area where she had seen the glimmer of chakra, slowly scanning the forest floor for that spark.

There.

Kana spun around and kicked off of the tree branch to launch herself towards the blue energy that weakly flickered in and out of her vision.

She _knew_ that chakra signature.

There was blood everywhere – splattered across the trees, splashed over surrounding bushes, staining the soil and pooling around the three bodies that were strewn across the clearing. For a brief, horrifying moment she thought that her dream had been some premonition, and the bodies that littered the ground were carrying the faces of her loved ones. As she stopped on the last tree to the clearing, though, there was only one face she recognized.

Kana dropped to the ground and rushed over to the tokujo's side, "Genma!"

Warm brown eyes fluttered open just long enough for recognition to flash in them; they slid back shut with a soft groan. There were three shuriken lodged in his chest, a kunai buried in his stomach and a number of broken bones and failing organs accompanying the gashes in his skin and clothing.

She was already unzipping his flak jacket and pushing it out of the way by the time her chakra formed around her index finger in the shape of a needle, much like how she had done when etching her symbol into Itachi's shoulder. It quickly cut through Genma's blood-drenched jersey to reveal exactly where the points of entry had been for the shuriken.

When they were wide enough for her to get in there, Kana reached into her hip pouch for a set of tweezers while her other hand rifled through the scroll pouch that she knew the tokujo kept a handful of senbon in. While any other medic cringed at Genma's blatant misuse of the medical tools, she thanked him for his ridiculous oral fixation that he had passed onto her through association as she pulled out a bloody needle.

Blood trickled out from the wounds when Kana used the senbon to pull aside his skin to dip in the tweezers. Genma groaned as a shuriken was pulled out of his chest cavity, blood spurting out of the wound with his subsequent cough even as her chakra quickly worked to heal and restore the damaged tissue that was being freed from the razor-sharp throwing star.

The kunoichi was working on autopilot, shutting her brain off with the exception of what was directly in charge of taking care of Genma and staying aware of her surroundings. Her hands moved quickly, hovering over his body to apply enough medical ninjutsu that would staunch the bleeding enough for her to move onto the next order of business.

A hand reached up to grasp her upper arm with a pained sound, "L-lady… I…" Genma rasped, clearly struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Shh, you're alright," Kana removed her hand from his oozing thigh to cup his cheek with a hand, inadvertently smearing blood across his face as she fought against the fear that tried to clamber up her throat, "You're safe. I'm going to take care of you, Gen. You'll be home soon."

His head turned to the side when she reached out to press the center of his forehead, "I-I… Knew y-you we-weren't… You weren't o-one of them…"

Her stomach twisted at his words as her finger poked the chakra point that would render him unconscious before drifting down to flit through hand seals.

' _Sorry, Genma… But I'm just as bad as them,_ ' she thought sadly, watching a white barrier form around his unconscious body. Kana had only ever practiced this on an injured dog and horse, but it acted similarly to her barrier prison and chakra wave technique – she just needed to gently pulse her healing chakra out of the barrier until he was stable enough for her to move him.

Kana's head snapped up as another chakra signature began to approach, jumping to her feet and forming the chakra blade that extended down her forearm. Genma needed at _least_ half an hour in the chamber, but she couldn't be seen… It could ruin her position with the Akatsuki if word got out that she had been helping Leaf shinobi-

"What're you doing?! Get the hell away from him!"

Too late – he was here. Kana lunged forward and spun a kick into the puppet that was flying directly towards the chakra chamber encasing the Leaf tokujo, "Stop! You'll kill him!" she cried while her demon arm dissipated, throwing her arms out defensively.

Kankuro dropped to the forest floor with a scowl, "You're a _rogue ninja_ – a member of the _Akatsuki_! You expect me to just believe –" his scowl turned into an expression of shock and pain as he dropped to the ground with a pained grunt, holding his midsection while Crow dropped to the ground in a pile of puppet parts.

The pause gave the kunoichi enough time to properly take in the situation, which really only made a score of questions pop into her head that, for a few moments, Kana considered actually asking until she remembered their situation. Kankuro was the brother to Gaara, of which her organization _murdered_ for their own gain. He wouldn't tell her anything.

A low groan pulled her out of her thoughts as blood gushed out of the wound Kankuro was trying to hold shut. He tried to squirm away and make a noise that was probably supposed to be threatening when Kana rushed over to him, hands extended, but couldn't do more than twitch at the feeling of her hands pushing his away to gain access to the gash that extended from his flank to his belly.

"I don't need help from-"

"Just shut up," she hissed, "A few years back, your brother saved someone very precious to me. That is a debt I plan to repay today."

Kankuro's eyes narrowed as if to say he didn't really trust what she was saying, but didn't offer any more resistance when Kana began to apply healing chakra to his wound. There were a few cracked ribs and some damage to his left kidney and abdominal aorta – that last one was a lethal hit, though it wasn't anything too major that couldn't be fixed with a few minutes of concentration.

"You're that Anbu chick, aren't you?" he finally asked when his skin sealed shut with the faint tinkling of medical ninjutsu. When she didn't respond he sighed and turned his head to look at the white healing chamber that encased Genma, "I don't get it – why would an Anbu member join a terrorist organization full of S-ranked criminals, then help her enemies?"

Kana ignored the question and pretended as if restoring the cracks in the Sand-nin's ribs required more than the concentration required to take a shit. As cynical as he was about her, why the hell would he think that she would just start spilling all of _her_ secrets?

"The tokujo is going to need another twenty, twenty-five minutes before he's ready to go. Is anyone on their way?" she asked before releasing the jutsu that had just finished its work; any interruptions or backup or rescue squads could be bad.

A suspicious eyeing preceded Kankuro shaking his head and rising to a standing position, "We were supposed to be a _rescue_ team. No one's coming for _us_ ," he said solemnly while walking over to his limp puppet.

Rescue team? Kana looked at the two dead shinobi lying face-down in the grass now that she had the time to breathe; both of them wore red cuffs attached to their sleeves with white crosses. It was then that she realized that Genma was the only Leaf shinobi.

"What the hell _happened_?" she asked, looking up from the mangled corpses, "Why were three Suna-nin with a tokubetsu jonin from Konoha? Why were there _two_ medics assigned to _one_ team?"

Kankuro paused in wrapping Crow – probably to weigh his options. The kunoichi could almost hear the gears whirring in his head as he struggled with an internal battle. On one hand, she was a member of the Akatsuki. On the other, she had just saved his life and the life of his squad mate. Kana could see each question cross Kankuro's mind with the way his eyes surveyed the clearing.

In what she prayed was something that would tip him over to her side, and not something that would increase suspicion, she reached into her cloak to pull out the file that she had stolen from the Hokage's office.

"It wouldn't have anything do to with this, would it?" she closed the distance between them and handed him the manila folder.

Kankuro's eyes widened as they scanned the first page, "How did you-"

No point in lying now, Kana decided, "Long story short, I broke into Lady Tsunade's office for any reports of Anbu going MIA," she looked down at Genma, "I was on my way to basically do the same thing in the Hidden Stone. Am I wrong?"

"I don't understand… How does this interest the Akatsuki?" he asked while closing the file, eyes looking up to meet her gaze.

"It doesn't," she deadpanned.

There was another pause where Kankuro struggled to make sense of the situation. His brow knitted, which made his mostly-sweated off war paint look even messier than it already did, and the muscle over his jaw flexed as he grit his teeth thoughtfully.

Ah, well, his reaction was answer enough; the Sand-nin wouldn't be so apprehensive about responding if he didn't know anything about the disappearances. And if the Leaf was sending out units to partner with Suna that meant that Kana's suspicions had been correct, and that Anbu were being taken from more than just one village.

That didn't answer all of her questions, though. Were shinobi from the Land of Water and Lightning being taken? What about smaller villages without Anbu forces but still had notable kekkei genkai?

"Kankuro, the longer you _wait_ then the longer Orochimaru has to _kill_ our people," she said matter-of-factly, "Do you know where they're being taken?"

After a few moments of thinking he finally released a resigned sigh and shook his head, "We had a couple of Anbu squads set up along the border with the intention of drawing out whoever was kidnapping them. We were going to follow them back to the base to get a location."

They were using them as _bait_?! Kana grit her teeth angrily and balled up her fists. Her people – her brothers and sisters – were reduced to playing damsels in distress to be rescued by non-elites?!

She closed her eyes, releasing a long breath to keep calm as Kankuro continued, "I don't know how, but they figured our plan out. About half an hour after we began the pursuit we were attacked by Sound ninja that had been waiting for us."

So it _was_ Orochimaru in charge of the kidnappings…

Kana's heart skipped a beat, "You mean that the shinobi - _you let them get away?!_ " she rushed forward and grabbed him by the collar, "How long ago?!"

"Right before – Right before I got here. M-maybe twenty, thirty minutes ago," Kankuro stammered with eyes wide with both shock at the sudden outburst from the Leaf-nin, and irritation at being grabbed, "They were going to – hey, what are you doing?!"

Flicking the razor out of her ring, Kana sliced her thumb open and reached up under her sleeves to drag the blood over the seal on the inside of her left forearm, directly parallel to the seal for Hanako. She ignored Kankuro's surprised cry when a monstrously huge crow appeared in a puff of smoke, narrowly missing knocking the Sand-nin to the ground when he fluttered his wings at the sudden summoning.

"Kishin will take you where you need to go," she said quickly while releasing the white barrier around Genma. He wasn't completely healed and Kana was releasing the jutsu maybe five or ten minutes earlier than she would have liked, but he was a shinobi, in theory, his body should be strong enough to handle traveling at high altitudes. "You didn't see me _– I wasn't here_. Do you understand?"

Kankuro incredulously watched the massive bird pick up the tokujo and the fallen Sand medics with its claws, before turning that wide-eyed expression of confusion back to her, "What – _no!_ I can't lie about meeting an _Akatsuki_ member in-"

"Kankuro if you tell _anyone_ that I was here, it will get a lot of people killed," with her still-bleeding thumb Kana dragged her thumb over Hanako's seal, "Hanako, can you get the scent of the Sound shinobi off of this guy?

The bakeneko padded over to the Sand jonin and sniffed him for a few good, long moments before stepping back and looking over her shoulder with a nod. Kana climbed up to sit on her back like one would a horse and looked back down at Kankuro with merged dojutsu.

 _'Sorry, kid,'_ she thought while hiding and wiping away traces of her involvement, _'This is more than just about me.'_

Kishin scooped the unconscious teenager up in the claw that held Genma and, with a strong flap from his expansive wingspan, lifted up from the clearing.

Hanako took off at full speed.

* * *

 **Note** : I so desperately wanted to make an Of Mice and Men reference with the hair pulling thing. Kek.

As always, thank you for the lovely reviews! I like reading them when I'm sad :p Content creators thrive off of feedback.


	14. Chapter 14

**Note** : So I herpa-derped a few times and placed Kirigakure in the Land of Waves, instead of the Land of Water. Whoops.

Also, my sense of time is total fuckery. With the way I timed the events of everything, Kana's been out with the Akatsuki for like two freaking _years_. Where the eff was I coming up with 7-8 months? Bleh. I have so much shit to fix in past chapters D:

That being said, there seems to be some confusion over how her chakra works. To put it simply, imagine the black chakra like Celty's abilities from Durarara. She can mold it into basically whatever shape she wants, except it burns the shit out of other people that touch it whereas Celty's ability doesn't seem to directly injure someone just through contact. The white chakra restores. You know, one destroys and one fixes. Light and dark shit.

* * *

Leaves crunched beneath the crushing weight of Hanako's paws, dry shreds of their remains scattering through the air in the wake of the bakeneko's movements. Kana could smell the dirt that was kicked up with the leaves as they rushed through the forest.

 _'Sad girl, we will catch up to them,'_ she thought reassuringly, _'Your enemies were sloppy. Tracking them will be simple.'_

That didn't do anything to ease the kunoichi's nerves. There was always the chance that whoever took the bait was taking them to a separate location from the team that had been left as an ambush for the rescue squad. If the Sound was already onto what plans the Leaf had going on in conjunction with the Sand, that was a very strong possibility.

Hanako leaped over a fallen log, _'You are a ruthless interrogator. If that happens then you_ _ **will**_ _get your information.'_

Damn psychic link. Kana frowned and buried her fingers into the familiar black fur of the monstrously large cat that she had known since they were both young, 'They were powerful, but we're just tracking low-ranked Oto-nin. They might not know anything - they could have been ordered to go back to another base.'

She pushed a little more chakra into her Kurogan to expand her field of vision as they began to approach the border of the Land of Stone. The country harbored no major shinobi village so they didn't have any of their Anbu patrolling the nation lines, and the closest Iwagakure squad was nearly four miles away; they'd have no problem getting into the country undetected.

Even so, they had been running after the Sound ninja for nearly an hour - how could they be so far-

 _'I can sense them, too,_ ' Hanako purred, _'Hang on.'_

The bakeneko funneled chakra to her legs and picked up speed; Kana probably would have tumbled off if she hadn't seen the thought occur to Hanako before the warning reached her metaphorical ears. An anticipatory satisfaction began to brew in her chest as they closed in on the four shinobi running in the same direction - nothing could outrun Hanako.

The team only had a split second to sense the pair before they crashed through the bushes. When the widening of their eyes told Kana that they had registered that they were enemies, she was already picking at the open cut on her thumb to smear the blood over her left hand.

Two of the Sound-nin were trapped in black barrier prisons, one bouncing off of the wall with an agonized scream as the chakra burned through his flesh. His partner learned through his mistake and froze.

Kana jumped off of the bakeneko just as she lunged for the largest of the bunch. She grappled the shinobi to the ground, barrel-rolling with her arms and legs wrapped around him before slamming against a tree trunk. As soon as they came to a stop she was getting up on her knees with a firm hand wrapped around his neck.

"You're going to tell me where those Anbu are being taken," she hissed, reaching up to break the wrist connected to the hand that was trying to form a hand seal, "Don't _fuck_ around!"

Hanako released a ferocious growl around the throat precariously held in her jaw for effect. Ah, teamwork.

"Go to hell! We ain't telling you a thing!" the shinobi that hadn't been burned by the barrier shouted.

The kunoichi shifted so that her knee was holding the ninja down so that her hands were free to form hand seals that would impale the imprisoned ninja with dozens of spikes, impaling every major organ and artery before dissipating and dropping his lifeless body to the ground.

Looking back down to the Sound-nin underneath her, she ignored the horrified cries of his teammates, "You are _not_ walking away - I am going to kill every single one of you. The benefit of giving me the fucking information I want," Kana grabbed a kunai from her leg holster and drove it into his upper arm, "Is that your deaths will be _short_. You try to lie, feed me bad intel or fight me in _any_ other way -" she dragged the kunai up to his armpit, " - And your deaths will be the _bloodiest_ , most _painful_ , _longest_ murders ever to go down in the history of murders. _Do you fucking understand?!_ "

Fear flashed across what little of the shinobi's face was exposed, "I-I-I - Please -"

Good. He was afraid. Easier to push past his defenses, if there were any left. Kana eased from the Kurogan to the Ishikigan and wasted no time in splashing into the icy sensation of his consciousness. To be fair she didn't _really_ need to go through the hassle of threatening the squad, but she needed to convey _just_ how blindingly angry she was over the situation. His thoughts ended up being a scattered mess, which meant she didn't need to use genjutsu on him to turn him into a human vegetable, so at least _something_ productive came from it.

The shinobi was a jonin - no one of particular importance to the chain of command. He specialized in using sound waves as projectiles, blah, blah, blah... Kana zeroed in on his knowledge of hideouts. He may not be important to Orochimaru, but he _was_ still a jonin that was traveling in the general direction of where she had suspected a secret base would be located if Anbu were being taken from Suna and the Hidden Stone...

Prison base in the Land of Waves, a laboratory on Demon Island, the hideouts in Kusa and the Land of Sound were destroyed and abandoned - huh, that was news to her. Somewhat irrelevant, but it was good to keep in mind for later.

Bingo.

A triumphant grin spread across her face at the glimpse of a familiar scene. The Land of Birds was a relatively popular tourist destination for its famed annual bird migration; even if Kana didn't exactly vacation regularly as a shinobi, she had scene plenty of pamphlets and brochures that advertised the festivals associated with the bird season. This particular shinobi seemed to take advantage of his station by attending those festivals almost religiously.

The kunoichi carefully dug through his knowledge of the country, watching him travel to and from the country's main village through his eyes. The hideout entrance was cut out of a boulder that had a snake carved at the base, maybe fifty miles into the country border. It was an underground base with multiple levels but didn't have the intricate design of other hideouts, which meant that Orochimaru probably didn't frequent it. He probably just used it as a storage for those he deemed too good for his normal prison...

Kana frowned and dug around a bit on that particular subject, albeit in vain; this guy didn't know anything about Orochimaru or his travel habits. Oh well. What he had given her had been enough. Pulling out of his consciousness, her hands tightened around his head and neck before snapping his spine. She looked over at Hanako, who was beginning to drool from having her mouth open for so long, and gave a slight nod just as her jaw snapped shut around the throat of her captive.

The bakeneko was already tearing the last Sound shinobi apart when Kana began to climb onto her back, making sure to relay exactly what she had just seen. Just like before Hanako took off into the forest with her destination in mind; they were moving so fast that Kana could barely make out the details of their surroundings, and the wind blew hard enough for Kana's Akatsuki cloak to flutter almost violently behind them.

While the situation they were in had been urgent before, what with needing to chase down the Sound shinobi before they got too far for Hanako to track, she knew that they were at the point where they didn't need to rush this. The psychic link between them meant that their thoughts and emotions melded together to the point where they sometimes couldn't tell one from the other until they broke physical contact, and that meant that the monstrously large cat was experiencing the building rage and anxiety caused by whatever unknown horrors that Orochimaru's hideout held for them.

With that knowledge in mind Kana began to calm herself down, if only for Hanako's sake. They couldn't just barge into the base with their heads up their asses and their pulses racing like this - they needed to take a breather and work out a strategy after scouting out the area. This wasn't like stealing Orochimaru's ring, where Kisame and Itachi knew where she was and would come looking if she went missing; if Kana screwed this up then there wouldn't be any backup to save them.

 _"I'd be sad if you died."_

She reached up with one hand to brush her fingertips over the shoulder, tracing the white twin rings of scars that were hidden by layers of black fabric.

 _"Please be safe. Please, stay alive."_

They'd take this slow. They'd be safe.

* * *

 _'What's our next move?'_

Kana didn't look up from the food pills that were beginning to melt in her hands, "Gonna sleep a bit first," she murmured while smearing the bittersweet residue over her fingers, covering the tattoos like engine grease stains, "Replenish some of my chakra. Then I'll probably just sneak in and hope for the best."

Hanako lifted her head from where it was laying with an expression that perfectly conveyed the disapproval being transmitted through the psychic link, _'You don't have a plan?'_

It wasn't as if she hadn't tried to form one in the fucking five hours they had been lurking the base; Kana's head still felt as if it was going to split open from having to use her Kurogan for as long and as intensely as she did. Fact of the matter was, there was simply no way to get to her comrades without being detected. Not only was it a multi-floor base that had a layout similar to that of a beehive, but it was built to be narrow and very compact.

Sure, she could take things incredibly slow and merge all three dojutsu and basically genjutus the absolute hell out of everyone she came across, but that was only if she really wanted to induce an aneurysm on herself or suffer some sort of stroke. There were three strange holding cells that seemed to be made of some sort of chakra and four laboratories that were currently housing experiment candidates on three separate levels, which meant Kana would be working her eyes to death.

At the very best she could clear a way for those who were able to move on their own and carry others. The compound had nearly four dozen shinobi stationed within it, all that used that bizarre sound-ninjutsu that was bred from Orochimaru's experimentation; Kana had only fought Sound-nin a few times so she wasn't entirely sure how she'd fare in a series of close-range battles. They probably all had ear augmentation that rendered themselves resistant, if not impervious, to sound attacks so she wasn't relying too much on friendly-fire and collateral damage being a helpful player in this.

As much as the kunoichi wanted to take things as safely as possible, she wasn't left with many options other than trying to keep things quiet for as long as possible.

"Hanako, I'm gonna leave a clone at the entrance to bring them back here. I'm trusting you to keep them safe until I can get everyone out."

The bakeneko shifted her weight so that it was propped up on her arms before turning to look off into the distance, _'Of course, Sad Girl.'_

Kana could sense the worry in her old friend, and could see it in the faraway look in her eyes as the sun began to set. She sighed and finished off the food pills before curling into the crook of the cat's body to hopefully get a couple hours of sleep, _'It'll be okay. We've gotten out of worse situations than this.'_

* * *

The hideout was dark, thanks to the preferred dimly-lit lighting setup the Sound's bases all seemed to have. Normally Kana would complain about the strain on her eyes but, with the aid of the Kurogan, she was thankful for any potential upperhand she could have against her enemies as she ran through the narrow stone halls.

As opposed to her infiltration of the last base, where she was getting Orochimaru's ring, the kunoichi didn't skid into a corner and drop out of sight when footsteps began to echo through the hall she was currently in. Instead she focused her chakra to her hands and knees before jumping up to the ceiling, using the chakra to grip the smooth surface of the chiseled rock much like she did on her mission with the Sand Anbu. As they drew closer Kana carefully redirected her chakra to the back of her hand to form the long blade of her demon arm.

"I don't understand why you're complaining," the shorter of the three said, "It's gorgeous out here! The weather is great, the villages always hold festivals, and we get paid to enjoy the benefits of-"

The trio turned the corner while the tallest shook his head, "You're such a fucking fag, Shiyo. Worried about the pretty birds and flowers - where's your sense of adventure?!"

Kana held her breath and suppressed her chakra signature as they passed beneath her.

"I have a sense of adventure, I just appreciate the _finer_ things life."

They didn't notice when their companion, who lagged behind, was suddenly grabbed by the kunoichi when she released the ceiling to reach down and wrap an arm around his head before slitting his throat. She flipped down to the floor in silence, keeping the man's head in her arms to avoid him dropping to the ground with any unwanted noise. The other two dropped similarly and it didn't take long for Kana to drag their bodies into a shadowy corner.

Quiet. Careful.

She continued through the hall with her first objective in mind. The Anbu in the holding cells on levels two and three most likely were going to be in the best shape, in theory, so that was going to be her first stop. Once Kana got them out then she could try to form a squad with three others that were up to fighting.

Heart racing and boots silently clacking against the stone floor, she wasted no time in racing around a corner and dashing down the hall to the next guard that met his fate just a few moments later when his neck was snapped. Blood splashed over her arm when her chakra blade was driven through the belly of another Sound-nin, hand slapped over his mouth to muffle his surprised and agonized cry.

The first set of stairs led to a considerably cooler hallway that had even dimmer lighting than before. Did Sound shinobi have enhanced eyesight or something? Why the hell did they insist on bases where you can barely see what's going on?

Kana paused to press herself into a corner, crouching and catching her breath while carefully scanning the current floor. There were two holding cells on this floor but she couldn't see who was in it - the only reason she even knew that they were holding cells was because there was no other possible reason for multiple rooms to look like cages made from chakra.

She frowned at the thought. The bars weren't made of a normal chakra, but one that was dark and strangely familiar.

With that in mind the kunoichi pushed herself out of the corner and continued running; it didn't matter what kind of chakra it was as long as she could absorb it without it killing her.

There were only four guards stationed outside of the first holding cell, and they were too enveloped in some trivial debate over the dipping noodles versus ramen to notice her coming. With the element of surprise giving her an upper hand Kana pulled out a scroll from her belt and tore it open to summon two marked kunai while paying attention to their mannerisms; the one on the far left was skittish and was having difficulty proving his point about dipping noodles being a more satisfying experience, meaning he probably panicked easily.

Kana launched the three kunai and teleported to the first one just as it burrowed into the alpha male's chest, reducing her demon arm to chakra claws and gripping his throat. She didn't wait for his body to drop before teleporting to the second kunai and snapping the Sound-nin's neck. The third fell in a similar manner, and the skittish man was too shell-shocked to respond before Kana was springing onto his chest and tearing out his throat.

"C-captain... Yokai?"

Black hair slapped against her face when she whipped around towards the cell, "Torune!"

The Aburame was sagging into the wall, clad in the plain grey tunic that the other prisoners, with Tatsuma holding him upright. What relief Kana had felt was short-lived as she took in the exhausted and bandaged appearances of her comrades and nation's allies. It looked as if they hadn't slept since they had been kidnapped and most of them had multiple limbs wrapped in stained gauze.

"I... Don't... Under..." Imai's words were almost incoherent, lost in the dry hoarseness of his voice, and his eyes looked as if they were too heavy for him to keep open.

Kana tentatively reached out to one of the bars, "I'm gonna get you guys out, just-" She halted mid-sentence when the chakra surrounding the bar jumped out to wrap around her fingers, snaking up to her wrist. There was an unfamiliar sensation of her energy being drained away when the chakra slithered up to her elbow but, no matter how hard she tried, there seemed to be no way for Kana to absorb the chakra.

She released the bar and staggered back, looking at her hand and then back to the bar where the black flame-like energy was receding.

"The prison... It drains your chakra," Tatsuma explained, "That's how it keeps us here."

Well that would have been nice to know _before_ she started grabbing things... The kunoichi looked up from her hand to the imprisoned Anbu, "Do you know what's powering it?"

The majority of the group shook their heads but one, a Hyuga, raised his head at the question, "A couple of weeks ago... Th-they took me... Into... A lab. There was..."

"Slow down, take your time," Kana knelt down so that she was eye level with them, "There are two labs in the facility. Do you remember which one it was?"

The Hyuga nodded slowly, "It... Was the level below us... There's a girl there... The... Chakra on... The bars... Is the same..."

Someone was maintaining a chakra shield over the bars? And, beyond that, someone was able to sap chakra through the shield..? The kunoichi frowned as she studied the cage door - there wasn't a chakra thread linking the bars to the user and, what was more, it looked like each bar was locked in a barrier prison.

She gave a slight nod, "I'll be back once I've figured out a way to disable this. Just hang on," she said before turning to dash back to the stairs.

There was something eerily familiar about the chakra surrounding the gated prison - not just in style, but in chakra nature as well. It was dark, and had solidified into a smooth energy as opposed to normal chakra that was like a blue flame. Some people had slight color variations, only tinges, and everyone's chakra burned differently, but, in the end, it was still a blue flame.

Kana gripped a wall to use her momentum to skid around a corner, barely noticing the temperature difference that came with entering the lower level.

Why was this chakra so different from everyone else's?

Reaching back to grab the hilt of Kioku, she focused her chakra around the blade like she had been taught.

Who was this person? Another experiment?

The katana disemboweled three more Sound-shinobi and she ignored the blood that splattered over her thighs as she continued running.

Could it be a jinchuriki? How many were left? Kana counted - there was the Nine-Tails, which was in Konoha and had that bizarre orange chakra, the Three and Four-Tails were both still on the loose... Wasn't the Six-Tails in some missing-nin from Kiri?

Two Oto-nin were decapitated when she rounded a corner; their heads bounced off of the walls as their bodies crumpled to the cold stony floor in a pile of limbs, and three more were run through by Kioku. One guard attempted to shout for help, but was cut off by the blood that flooded his airways when the chakra-charged blade cut into his throat.

The door to the laboratory swung open with a loud bang that caused Kana's ears to ring. She didn't care.

"Well, well, isn't this a surprise," Kabuto smirked when he had turned to face the intruder, cool as a cucumber as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Kana ignored him, too.

Her Kurogan deactivated, ironically enough, to get a better look at the small figure floating in a test tube.

The one with the dark grey hair that shifted colors when silver-white eyes slid open to peer curiously at the kunoichi still standing in the doorway.

The chakra.

The black chakra.

It made sense now.

"There's... That's..." words failed to string together in a coherent sentence as Kana's mind desperately worked to make sense of the situation.

Her entire life - all twenty years of it - she had been told that only one Kana could ever exist at a time, that their eyes harbored the power that passed onto a more capable candidate once they were destroyed. Of course she had known that it was complete and utter bullshit, but there hadn't been a record that she had come across that ever mentioned multiple incarnations of the Kana living at once.

But, there it was. Absolute, undeniable proof.

The little girl floating in the bluish-green fluid, with dozens of wires attached to her head and body... The little girl whose chakra types were twisting and turning within her like oil and water, brushing against each other without ever mixing...

The little girl staring back at her was a Kana Shimi.


	15. Chapter 15

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost," Kabuto purred.

His words snapped Kana out of the daze she had seemed to have fallen into, and she somehow managed to tear her eyes away from the cylindrical chamber, "She's maintaining the barriers." It wasn't a question.

The doctor's smirk seemed to somehow become even more smug as he jotted something down onto a clipboard, "Fascinating, isn't it? We thought you were the only one," he said casually as if she were just another Sound-nin, "So you can imagine our surprise when this little treasure practically _fell_ into our laps."

Fell into their laps? She glanced back at the girl, who must have been only five or six at the very most, before looking back to Kabuto, "I don't understand... How does Orochimaru manage to kidnap a Shimi child?"

Kanas were treated like precious jewels by the clan - constantly hidden away in the compound and privately trained as early as three years old, and kept under a near-constant guard until they're considered capable shinobi. Then they were worked to the bone to prove the Shimi clan's dominance in the village. You didn't just _take_ a Kana.

As if reading her mind, Kabuto raised an eyebrow and adjusted his glasses, "Oh, no, this little one had been cast aside like a worn dish towel," he explained, "I suppose the Shimi clan didn't want anyone to find out that one of their most precious facts they held to be true, was nothing more than a _myth_ \- a miscalculation, at best."

Her surprised settled into a disgusted horror with every word that he spoke. The Shimis were known for being obsessive about their culture, which greatly revolved around their laws and rituals. Why the Hokages allowed them to continue on as they did was something that never ceased to baffle Kana, considering how brutal and gruesome those rituals could become. With that in mind, it honestly wasn't too far-fetched of an idea that the clan would want to cover up the existence of another Kana, if only to preserve their ideals.

But why exile the child? Why allow her to live instead of just killing her at birth?

 _'Because, in the end, she's still a precious Kana,'_ a dark voice sneered.

"What, did you think we had just _forgotten_ about you? That we couldn't find you as you traversed the continent with your precious Itachi?" He continued, "Oh, no, I'm afraid you aren't _that_ elusive. Lord Orochimaru and I have been keeping tabs on _all_ of the Akatsuki, _especially_ you two. However..." Kabuto turned his smirk towards the floating child, "A child is a blank slate. It doesn't take much to get them to see things your way, so we decided that we didn't require your services just yet and allowed you to play rogue ninja for a while..." he looked back, "But I assume you didn't come here for the girl, so how can I assist you today?"

Right. The Anbu. Kana narrowed her eyes and shifted into an offensive stance, "I guess you won't tell her to lower the barriers holding the kidnapped Anbu if I say please?"

The medic's eyebrow arched again and his smirk turned mischievous, "While I'm a stickler for manners, I'm afraid not," he said warmly, clearly amused as he reached for a metal tray full of tools.

She lunged the second Kabuto's fingers grasped the scalpel, swinging Kioku up in an attack that was meant to push him into the corner that was just a few feet away. It was a move that would have been successful on a lesser ninja, but he wasn't a lesser ninja. The Sound-nin sprang to the side and threw his arm out so that the scalpel would cut through Kana's extended forearm.

Thankfully the Sharingan gave her the insight required to realize that her efforts had failed, and she quickly pulled her arm in and tucked into a ball to roll out of Kabuto's reach, jumping to her feet just a second later to push off of the wall. He spun away to avoid Kioku cutting through his hip, but wasn't able to anticipate Kana assuming he would dodge the attack. She dropped forward into a handstand and swung her legs out, using the momentum to spin on her hands, and landed a kick into his ribs.

"There's something I don't quite understand," Kabuto said once he had regained his footing, dashing forward, scalpel raised, "A member of the _Akatsuki_ , a traitor to one's village -" he ducked under the chakra-charged blade that aimed for his midsection, " - Interested in rescuing Anbu is strange enough on its own -" light glinted off of the steel medical tool as it thrust at Kana's face, " - but you were also one of Danzo's highest ranking agents."

She twisted to the side so that the scalpel missed her cheek by mere millimeters and pulled out her tanto, "What's my history in Root got to do with anything?"

Kabuto reached out at the arm that was swinging the black katana, twisting his wrist around to grab at her forearm, "Why, it has to do with _everything_ ," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Then, realization crossed his features as a thought seemed to hit him, and the grin from earlier returned, "Oh, no, this is just _too_ good," he chuckled, bending back and releasing Kana's arm so that the tanto swung through empty air and her kick passed over his body.

Kana didn't answer, choosing to instead use his vulnerable position to land a hit. Kabuto continued the movement by flipping backwards and couldn't avoid the sword that thrust out to pierce his midsection, only capable of twisting so that it sliced through his flank.

"Sasuke Uchiha wasn't Orochimaru's only object of interest all those years ago," he purred, amused even as blood began to seep into the grey fabric wrapped around his waist, "But how do you think he knew that _you_ were there, as well? Think."

An endless number of thoughts raced through Kana's head as she doubled back as to not be kicked in the ribs. So Orochimaru knew that she would have been stationed in the tower during the Chunin Exams? When they had met he had seemed as if it was nothing more than a pleasant surprise; why would he hide that it had been an event he had orchestrated? And what did that have to do with her position as an Anbu Root Captain?

The kunoichi risked a glance over to the row of experiment tubes. There was no way to use any of her traditional chakra jutsus without risking the test subjects' lives, but it looked like Kabuto was too much of an even match in close combat for her to have much confidence in taking him out like this...

She frowned and threw up her tanto to block the scalpel that sliced through the air towards her shoulder, sliding a foot back to brace herself, "Are you seriously trying to say that Danzo was handing Anbu over to you?" Kana drawled with sarcasm dripping from each word. The entire point of Danzo sending her away, other than to assist Itachi, was to keep her _out_ of Orochimaru's grasp. Why would he be giving agents, some from his own foundation, over to the sannin? And how would that involve the other nations?

Kabuto's grin expanded and he increased the pressure on the scalpel. There was an obvious strength difference between the two and the added force caused Kana's foot to slip; she crumpled to the ground and dropped Kioku in a last-ditch attempt to keep the scalpel away from her face by bracing the tanto with her freed hand. How was he able to use a scalpel like a kunai so easily? It wasn't even _bending_.

"Every man has his price," Kabuto whispered, "Tell me, what does Danzo Shimura hold most dear?"

How the hell was she supposed to -

Her lips parted as a horrifying thought occurred to her. Danzo would do _anything_ to protect the Leaf, even if that meant sacrificing the lives of his men. His position in the village would also grant him unobstructed access to any shinobi records and the bred-loyalty of his agents meant that they would do anything and everything that was asked of him. That meant that he would be able to alter records, wipe people from existence... As long as it spelled a safe future for Konoha. If Orochimaru was threatening their village with something akin to the Sand and Sound invasion...

That would explain how the Sound accrued such a large following in such a short amount of time, even if it was led by a man with an oustanding history as a legendary shinobi. Was Orochimaru going to various village leaders, blackmailing and threatening them? What was one or two lives here and there when there was a whole village for the village leader to protect? Combine them with those that approached the sannin after leaving their homes... Over the course of a decade or so, that'd get him a sizeable army.

And, then, Orochimaru got greedy. He attacked the Leaf, breaking their fragile agreement and losing the trust of other Great Shinobi he had to start kidnapping shinobi, and targeted the group with the shortest lifespan and the most likely to go MIA or get killed in combat.

Anbu.

He just wasn't counting on anyone to pick up on the sudden disappearances, and he sure as hell wasn't expecting the nations to start working together.

A low, hum-like chuckle accompanied the satisfied grin that Kabuto wore, "Atta girl."

Horror melted into a fury hat burned hotly in her chest. Kana focused her chakra and blasted enough of it out to send Kabuto crashing into a test tube, throwing her legs back to roll into a crouching position before lunged over to where he was pulling himself out of the glass.

All this time - all this time, he was selling ninja to Orochimaru?! It was _his_ fault that the invasion during the Chunin Exams even happened - it was _his_ fault that shinobi like Hayate and Tenpo were dead!

The doctor's smirk faltered when the black blade of her katana only narrowly missed slicing his arm in two, "You know what the best part of all of this is?" he asked while focusing a chakra to his hand, "It's that everyone else was in on it!"

Kana grit her teeth and used the flicker technique to appear behind him; an anger-fueled thrill raced up her spine when her tanto deflected Kabuto's hand and cut through the soft flesh of his palm.

"That's right - it wasn't just Danzo. Oh, no," he cried excitedly, "Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane - even your precious _Lord Hokage_ , Hiruzen Sarutobi - the village officials _all_ agreed to sell your ninja to us to avoid the risk Lord Orochimaru possessed. Just like how Danzo _bought_ orphans from the village! Just like how they agreed that _slaughtering_ the Uchiha Clan was the best way to go about things!"

No - no!

This wasn't true.

It wasn't _allowed_ to be true.

She sheathed her blades and began to focus chakra to both of her hands. Kana's left arm was soon encased by her familiar demon arm, while her right hand began to hold a swirling black ball as Kana dashed across the room. The Sharingan showed her that Kabuto was gathering chakra to prepare for the Rasengan that was being shoved into his abdomen, a typical display of the Pre-Healing Jutsu, but that was something that she had been expecting.

What she was also expecting was for his body to be thrown through the two experimentation tubes that were behind him, and through the wall that lay behind them.

Kabuto's shirt was almost immediately shredded, along with the first few layers of his flesh, just an instant before he crashed through multiple layers of glass and rock. The Sound shinobi that had been eating breakfast in the room all jumped out of their seats in alarm, three being crushed in some way or another from the rubble that flew about the small cafeteria, and immediately charged towards the kunoichi that was already forming hand seals. Four of them exploded when the wave of chakra pulsed through their bodies - two others died instantaneously from brain damage and the remaining five were sent to their knees to live out the last moments of their lives in absolute agony as their internal organs ruptured.

It may have been overkill but Kabuto was unharmed, as if the wave had been completely diverted. She used the Kurogan to look back at the child in the test tube that was watching the scene unfold with terror written all over her features. Did she absorb the chakra that had been specifically aimed for the doctor that was still picking himself up off of the floor? If so... That girl was on a whole other level.

But why not absorb the chakra blade on her arm, or the rasengan, or the chakra that was wrapped about Kioku earlier?

Kana dove towards Kabuto to pierce his chest, but he rolled away with a pained grunt. She wasted no time in kicking off of the floor and using her momentum to propel herself into his body and slam him against the jagged edge of the shattered wall he had just crashed through. There was a considerable difference in strength between them, but she still had the larger chakra reserve. The force of her charge resulted in two fractured ribs and the back of his head smashing into the stone with an audible _crack_.

"Tell her to release the Anbu!" she snarled, using his dazed state to drive her demon arm through his thigh, "Tell her! Now!"

The glazed look over his eyes began to melt away as the seconds passed, and he raised his head to cough and meet her gaze, "You know... We're not so different," he panted.

Kana punched him high on his cheekbone, " _Shut up!_ We're _nothing_ alike - order her to release the fucking jutsu!"

That seemed to be enough to bring him back to his senses because his eyes suddenly were looking at her with a surprising clarity, and his lips twitched upwards into a hint of a smile. Though... This wasn't sadistic, or mischievous like the one he wore earlier.

Kabuto was looking at her with something of a sad smile, like how one would look at a dying child.

"Regarded as nothing more than a tool for our villages... Cast away when that tool becomes too dangerous..." he coughed again when he was punched in the gut, "Forced to kill our mothers... Unsure of what the future holds for people like us... Unsure of who we _really_ are-"

"Shut up!" Kana punched the doctor hard enough for his glasses to clatter to the stone floor, skittering across the room and sliding underneath a table. Before Kabuto could respond she focused her bleeding eyes on him and worked on setting him under a genjutsu; hers wasn't anywhere near as refined as Itachi's so this was going to be a challenge.

His mind fought against hers and she could feel him struggling to out-genjutsu her with his own techniques, "Oh, yes, we're more alike than you may think. Maybe even more so than you and your precious _Uchiha_ ," his eyebrows narrowed in concentration, which made his smile look as if it turned sadistic again, "Don't you want to know your real name, ' _Kana_ '? Don't you want to have a _place_ in this world?!"

The kunoichi pushed more chakra into her genjutsu and grit her teeth angrily. Kabuto was dancing on a number of nerves, many of them running deep, and she wasn't going to be able to concentrate if he continued to get under her skin like this. Kana needed to end this. Now.

She gripped his shirt and yanked him back to shove him into the wall again, "The jutsu! Release it!"

A bloody laugh bubbled up Kabuto's chest and he mentally pushed back even as her Ishikigan struggled to shove away his consciousness, "This is pathetic," he cried, "You _want_ it - you want it _so_ badly! But you won't take it! Why?!"

Because... Because Konoha was her _home_. She was loyal to her people, and she loved the Leaf. She loved her _comrades_.

Then, he was gone.

Kana's fist slammed into the wall that he had been behind and she nearly toppled over from the inertia from the punch that had been directed at his face. She looked down dumbly at her bleeding hand, which was holding nothing but air, and looked up just in time to see Kabuto's knee smash into her face. How did he -

The genjutsu.

She had lost.

Warm blood gushed out of her nose and dribbled down onto her jacket as she was knocked flat on her back from the force of the strike. Shit. Kana struggled to work past the pain of her dojutsu, the pain in her nose and the disorienting sensation of her head smacking off of the cold stone floor, rolling onto her side and pushing herself up into a kneeling position even as the world continued to spin violently around her.

A hand cupped her chin to turn her face upwards so that it was just a few inches away from Kabuto's, whose face was completely unreadable.

"I'll tell you what, my dear," he purred, reaching up with his free hand to touch her face. Kabuto's grip tightened so Kana couldn't move and she soon felt the soothing sensation of medical ninjutsu being applied to her shattered nose, "I don't particularly enjoy forcing people to do things, so you come to me when you're good and ready. Until then..." he released her chin to stand upright and rush towards the door, "How about we play a game? If you can get out of here alive, those Anbu are _all_ yours. Think of it as an _offering_ to prove my sincerity."

Kana used the wall for support to pull herself into a standing position, still woozy even after her chakra began to repair the damage done to her head, but the Sound-nin was already gone. Get out of here alive? What did he mean by that?

She looked back to the girl still floating in the experiment chamber, then back to the trail of blood Kabuto had left that ran out the door. The man was fast but, if she left now, Kana could still catch up to him. She could bury a kunai in his body, teleport to Itachi, and have Itachi use his Mangekyo to force him to give the order to lower the barriers, then take Kabuto to the Leaf so he could be interrogated... But Kana had been intentionally leaving him out of the loop for a reason. Kabuto was too smart and too keen to be overpowered by her own genjutsu...

There was a distant boom that was muffled by the thick layers of rock that made up the underground compound, and it took the low rumbling that came after two more booms that snapped her out of her musings. Explosions...?

 _"If you can get out of here alive."_

No way - he was destroying the compound? Kabuto was going to bury the couple dozen of his own men still left in the hideout, and destroy his research and labs, just to ensure his safety?!

Kana leaped over the rubble to rush through the opening she had made in the wall, "Kid. I need you to lower the barriers that are keeping those prisoners!" she skidded to a stop in front of the tube to meet the child's gaze.

 _'I can't! Master Kabuto -'_

 _'Is leaving you to die! Do you hear that?'_ she nodded up to the ceiling, _'He's activated the compound's failsafe. He doesn't care about you!'_

The girls' eyes flashed, and Kana could feel the crushing weight of her words instill a sense of despair in her chest, _'No, he wouldn't... Master Kabuto cares-'_

 _'Please, we don't have time!'_ the kunoichi produced a small cloud of chakra that snaked around her fingers, and raised it so that the kid could see it, _'Look, we're the same, see? We're the **only** two of our kind - Kabuto is okay with letting you die but, if you lower those barriers, I'll get you **out** of this tube and I'll take you some place safe.'_

Kana felt the girl struggling with herself - fully aware of the crumbling foundation of the hideout, but still loyal to Kabuto and wanting to follow his orders to the T. At the same time she had never met someone with the same abilities as her, and that left her feeling conflicted.

 _'I understand how you feel,'_ she rested a hand over where the girl's cheek would be if the glass wasn't separating them, _'I really do. But, when I was younger, I told myself that staying loyal to one person was stupid- you can't instill all of your confidence into one man, because humans... They're not reliable as individuals,'_ a finger hooked under the black band of her goggles to tug them down and reveal her swirling eyes, _'You need to put your confidence in your **people**. And I can give you that. I can give you a place where you belong. Where you'll be safe.'_

There was another moment where the girl hesitated, though she soon closed her eyes and nodded. Kana focused her Kurogan to the prison cells to see that the barriers had dissipated, but the Anbu were too drained to break out of their cells, even with the Aburame's insects being capable of chewing through metal, so she wiped a finger over her chin and dragged the sticky blood over the tattoo on her left hand.

This was going to hurt.

Black chakra raced across the ceiling and up the walls of the room, snaking out the door and flying through the halls to do the same to the rest of the compound. What had covered the room reached out to cover the chamber and crush the glass; the girl tumbled out with the water that gushed out across the laboratory floor.

 _'The wires. Will taking them off hurt you?'_ she asked as her breathing began to become labored. The compound was small, but it still required a shit-ton of chakra to build barriers on the ceilings and walls to reinforce the structure and keep it from collapsing even as more bombs went off, some louder than others. It didn't help that Kana hadn't arrived with a full tank in the first place.

The girl shook her head, _'Master Kabuto says that they only watch my brain and body.'_

Kana bit her lip as her chakra solidified and continued to expand, _'Take them off. Go find the prisoners and get them out. Take them to the clone, she'll help get you all to the cat. The cat is your friend.'_ Almost there... _'If there are any that are strong enough, have them go to each lab and free the guys they can.'_

 _'What about y-'_

 _'A proper captain makes sure her men are out before caring for herself. Now go!'_ The kunoichi made sure there was a sense of finality in her words, carried by her authoritative tone, and slammed up her mental barrier to tell her that there was going to be no arguing.

Swirling eyes flashed a second longer before the child was pulling what looked like EEG and ECG wires away from her forehead and chest, wincing at the stinging sensation that came from the glue ripping away from her skin. When she had properly detached herself from the series of machines that whirred and beeped in protest next to the shattered tube, the girl picked herself up off of the floor and ran out of the door.

Kana released the Reserve Seal on her back when she had completely encased enough of the hideout for the Anbu to escape. There were a few blocked passages from where the bombs had successfully managed to cave in some of the walls and halls so the kunoichi began to turn her focus onto using chakra waves to clear the way. Short, quick bursts of chakra. Kana also made sure to blast through the rubble that was closing off the entrance to the hideout.

The walls began to shake as the final bombs went off, completely obliterating any structural integrity of the hideout. Now, the only thing that was keeping the compound from collapsing in on itself was the chakra barriers holding it all together. If her head wasn't feeling as if only the hairs on her scalp was keeping it from splitting in two then Kana probably would have had the frame of mind to laugh darkly to herself.

Shimis regarded the Kanas like they were these gods and goddesses, harboring the power of their ancestors and fighting for the glory of the clan like an ancient warrior. They held no regard for the pain that was associated with prolonged and extensive use of their bloodline traits and taught them to push themselves as far as they could, if only so they could push farther the next time. Pain was nothing to pay any mind to if it meant they succeeded in their work.

That was something that most people didn't understand. The excruciating sensation of wielding their kekkei tota for too long. The nightmares and haunting thoughts that came with being able to feel everything that your chakra touched, even if it was healing. The exhaustion that was felt from having to continuously feed chakra into your jutsu to maintain things like the demon arm and barrier prisons.

Kana's muscles trembled as she watched the child use that same chakra blade to cut through the bars of the first cell; Orochimaru must have been training her in more than just defensive and absorption techniques.

If someone were to have told her six months ago that another one of the Kanas existed, she would have scoffed at them. It wasn't that she believed that the kekkei tota really was the result of her eyes being possessed by a patriotic demon spirit of her ancestor, Kana just knew that it was extremely rare for more than one of them to exist at a time. It only happened every four or five decades, at the very least. Long enough for the living Kana to become too old to fight, resulting in their eyes being stabbed.

Now, she was watching that little girl point towards the lab and the exit. Tatsuma handed Torune over to an Anbu Kana didn't recognize before sprinting to the laboratory; the rest began to hobble and carry one another towards the stairs that would lead to the upper level. So much for clearing a path for them before making the rescue... Even if she had managed to block off the doors to the remaining Sound-nin, and used the barriers to encase those guarding the holding cells and crush their bodies, just _once_ Kana wished that a plan could go exactly as she had planned it out.

"Captain Yokai," Tatsuma rushed into the room with a slight limp but, otherwise, appeared unharmed.

The kunoichi didn't budge from where she was kneeling, "There are two men in the... Back... Probably can break him... Out for you..."

He didn't wait for further explanation before running back to the first chamber that shattered under the pressure of the chakra that snaked around it. The child was already giving instructions to the second group of prisoners by the time Tatsuma had hauled the test subject up off of the floor with an arm wrapped around his waist.

"Captain-"

"Follow the barriers... Keep going up..." Kana panted, eyes screwed shut against the strain holding up literally tons of rock was putting on her body, "My summon's... In the woods... Bugs find her."

He hesitated for a moment but didn't disobey what he knew was a direct order. Whether or not she was in the Akatsuki was irrelevant - both of the Aburames and Sai were her usual teammates on missions and never questioned her commands, even now. It probably had less to do with loyalty and more to do with the knowledge that Kana had always gotten them out of a tough spot alive; that didn't bother her because all that mattered was that they got out.

A pained moan escaped her lips when he was finally out of earshot. Constantly feeding chaka into the barriers was starting to take its toll and it wasn't going to be long before her concentration broke under the blinding agony or her chakra ran out, whichever came first. Either way, there was no way Kana was going to be able to move from this spot while maintaining the walls.

 _'Hurry up, kid...'_ she prayed silently. The girl was on the final prison and there were others already racing to the labs to free those that had fallen victim to Orochimaru's experimentation. Those that were able to be saved were being broken free.

This was happening.

They were getting away.

Even through the agony and the building exhaustion, there was a calm blanket that settled over her mind at the thought. For all of the people she had killed for the Akatsuki, for all of the information she had stolen and all of the deaths she caused because of it, Kana had finally done something good for her people.

One by one the barriers fell as they were cleared, one level crumpling entirely now that there was nothing keeping it up.

She felt a little guilty, if she was honest, but it was for other reasons. No one would be around to help Itachi the way that she did, and Danzo was probably going to snatch up the girl once she was returned to the Leaf. Her promise to Neji was going to be broken. She'd never see Lee's overly expressive woodland creature expressions again. Kisame'd be sad. Kakashi and Guy would always be disappointed in her. She'd never see Sasuke come back home. She'd never get to visit Kotetsu and Izumo's graves... She'd never be able to apologize - to tell them just how _sorry_ she was that things turned out the way they did.

Kana's thoughts turned to the bracelet and medallion in her pouch, _'I'm sorry, everyone... I am so, so sorry.'_

The last of the imprisoned shinobi escaped through the hideout's exit and Kana released the jutsu.


	16. Chapter 16

Everything hurt.

"Guys... Waking up..."

Kana's attempt at speech was lost to raspy whispers.

"Don't... Space... Scare."

Without opening her eyes she could feel multiple bodies shift away. Where was she?

"Cap'n, are you with us? Fer real this time?"

Haru?

A pair of small, soft hands touched her cheeks and the familiar warm sensation of chakra flooded her body like a gentle sun ray.

"Captain Yokai can you move?"

Torune...

Kana's eyes fluttered open to see the child from the laboratory peering down at her with swirling eyes that burned at her irises. Haru and Torune were also leaning in with expectant expressions and, even if they were the only ones in her field of vision, she could feel the others' eyes on her.

She gingerly pushed herself up so that her weight was propped up on her elbows, eyes scanning the small crowd that surrounded her. Reality slammed into her gut like a boulder and adrenaline kicked in as she struggled to sit up and grab the girl.

What members of the group that were familiar with her threw up their hands like she was a wild animal, and the ones that could ably move shifted into defensive crouching positions.

This was bad. This was really, really bad. She had been seen - she had been seen and identified by multiple Anbu that could take this information back to their home villages. Obito could find out. He eventually would, if too many people found out that Kana had been helping free Anbu. Shit, shit, _shit_.

Could she made an excuse? Her eyes scanned the crowd of wary faces. She could say that she had only been in the compound to steal intel, or the girl, for the Akatsuki. Kana could kill a couple of them to prove her point -

It wasn't until the familiar seven-tone whistle rang through the forest that Kana froze with her hand half-raised for the Flying Thunder God Technique. Four other voices mimicked the chirping sound, and then the rest of the Konoha shinobi chimed in.

 _Oly, oly, oxen free._

"We ain't gonna hurt ya," Haru said slowly, "C'mon, whaddya take us for? Ya just saved our _lives_."

"I'm... I -" Kana screwed her eyes shut and sagged back to brace herself on her forearms, "You shouldn't... Trust a traitor." Fuck, her body ached.

A few of the shinobi averted their gazes, and some others shifted uncomfortably. The rest of the shinobi not from Konoha looked confused but wary as they watched the scene unfold. It was then that she realized that she had been resting against Hanako, who shifted her body so that she could put all of her weight on the large feline's body as opposed to supporting it on her own.

 _'They've been talking,'_ she thought solemnly.

"When we were on a mission to the Land of Water you said that shinobi who abandon their duty were garbage, and that Anbu who turned their back on their brothers and sisters are scum," Torune explained calmly, "Those aren't the words of a shinobi that's planning to betray her village."

Next to him, Tatsuma nodded silently in stoic agreement.

Imai looked up from where he was lying to meet her gaze, "When I first joined under your command... You said that a shinobi's alliances shouldn't... Fall onto a singular being, like a kage, but... With his village and his... C-comrades..." he looked up at the orange sky with a sigh, too weak to continue explaining the point he was trying to convey.

"We're not asking that you explain why you saved us," a shinobi Kana didn't recognize added, "We're no strangers to classified information. However, if you ever find yourself in need of help, the Iwagakure Anbu owe you a very strong debt."

Her eyebrows knitted, "How - how can you _say_ that?! I'm a part of the Akatsuki! I was a major part of the Kazekage's _murder_!" Kana pushed herself into a sitting position, still leaning on Hanako, "I've _killed_ for them! I steal information for them -"

"Shinobi are the unseen ones who support the great tree of Konoha from the depths of the earth... Never seeing the light of day, toiling in the shadows. That's the way of a true shinobi."

She looked up to Tatsuma, who had been silent the entire time and was looking over at her with an expression that was unreadable but very, very uncharacteristic for the man. It was almost like the fond expression his cousin wore, if only less expressive. They were the words that Root revolved around, its very creed that was ground into the minds of every member's mind until it became a part of them.

Kana's eyes burned as tears threatened to spill over. Kakashi and the other shinobi... They didn't know. They didn't understand.

But, the people all gazing back at her... Thhey were doing so with the same resolve that she had seen in the faces of her platoon on the night Danzo informed her of her transfer to the foundation.

They knew.

Her people understood.

It broke her heart, and warmed it at the same time.

"You... You can't tell anyone," she whispered, swallowing against the lump in her throat, "No one can know that I..."

Haru nodded with a fond smile and reached out to pat her thigh, "We know, Cap'n. We got yer back, right?" she turned back to the others for support, who nodded in almost perfect harmony with murmurs of their agreement.

"I can't say a lot of us really understand the specifics..." An unfamiliar shinobi added, "But... I think that this rescue mission of yours was enough to gain our trust. The Sunagakure Anbu will be sure to omit your involvement from the official report."

A woman next to him nodded, "The Hidden Stone concurs. Just don't make us regret it."

Kana raised a hand to wipe at her eyes with her sleeve, "I-I... I..." she noticed a red glinting from her wrist where the sleeve of her jacket had fallen, and pushed it up further to expose a familiar beaded bracelet slung around her wrist, "How... Did I get here?"

"A kid brought you here," a man said matter-of-factly, "He had dark hair and red eyes."

"We thought you had died when the hideout collapsed," a Suna-nin joined in, "But, then, there was an explosion and some sort of grey monster with wings flew out of the rubble like a scene out of a movie."

Torune hummed in agreement, "The monster transformed into a teenager that brought you to us and left without a word."

Sasuke... The kunoichi thumbed the small clan charms that dangled from the bracelet he had made for her when he was just a little boy. He must have been the one to put the trinket on, but why? Not only that but Kana hadn't even sensed his presence in the compound the entire time she had been there, so where had he come from?

She could only bring herself to smile softly and continue wiping the tears from her cheeks, _'That boy..'_

"So what do we do now?"

The Hidden Stone shinobi's question was enough to pull her back to the current situation, and Kana experimentally shifted so that she was sitting up without the support of Hanako's body; the verdict was that her body ached from the chakra depletion, but she'd be able to move freely with some more rest. "Well, I was hoping to heal some of your wounds before taking off..." she sagged back into the bakeneko, "But I can't, right now. I'm sorry-"

A soft, tiny hand touched her chin and turned it to the side so that Kana's eyes locked on the little girl's, _'I can help.'_

She frowned. Not only did Kana not know the extent of the child's abilities, but she didn't know if she could even be trusted. There was something eerily calm about her demeanor despite having just been abandoned for the second time in her short, short life, and that left the kunoichi feeling uncomfortable with leaving her in charge of healing her comrades.

 _'Master Kabuto taught me how to fix broken bones and open wounds,'_ the child explained in a tone that was frighteningly adult-like, _'He also taught me that it is a doctor's duty to heal those in need, no matter where they come from.'_

This kid was royally messed up.

Kana unsnapped the holster on her left thigh and pulled out an unmarked kunai. She was going to have to test the kid before letting her care for the others so, with a sharp inhale to brace herself, the kunoichi slashed the small blade down her inner thigh. Blood gushed out of the wound, much like the horrified and startled gasps that came from the others, and dripped down to stain the grass a deep red.

When she presented the leg to the girl, she immediately understood - probably because of the psychic link and Kana's lack of a mental block - and crawled over to rest her hands over the bleeding gash. There was a gentle tinkling sound before the soft white glow of healing chakra appeared; she wasn't using normal medical ninjutsu for this?

 _'This is too deep for standard healing chakra to work fast enough,'_ the girl explained.

Whether or not she trusted her or not, Kana couldn't help but raise an impressed eyebrow and, within just a minute, the gash had closed completely and the kid was already using her shirt to wipe the blood from the kunoichi's thigh. That wasn't entirely necessary but she couldn't help but appreciate the extra step she took.

"That's the same chakra ya used on ma leg in the barracks, right?" Haru asked with a curious expression that was similar to the others'.

Kana nodded, "Yeah. I'm apparently not the only one that was born with both kekkei totas..." she looked back to the girl, "Start with the smaller wounds, first-"

 _'But the order of healing-'_

"I know, but it's more important that the ones with lesser injuries are fully healed first. That way more people are available to carry the more injured, in case I can't-"

 _'But-'_

The kunoichi narrowed her eyes, "Do _not_ argue. You wanna help, you do it on _my_ terms."

Protests ran through the child's head but she didn't project them and, instead, turned to scan the crowd of maybe forty. Kana tried not to pay attention to how there were far fewer survivors than she had hoped for as she watched the child trot over to and kneel between the tiny cluster of Mist shinobi. With the help of the Sharingan and Kurogan she was able to carefully monitor the effects of the kid's medical ninjutsu, which was surprisingly good. What had taken Kana nearly two years of studying, this girl had down-pat by the age of...

 _'Kid, how old are you?'_ she asked upon realizing she had no idea what her name or age was.

She didn't look up from the hairline fracture she was healing, _'I am six years old, according to Master Kabuto. I was born in the winter, so he named me Yuki.'_

Yuki... It was a fitting name for a child with such white skin and shining white eyes. She wondered if the girl could also fight, which was promptly answered by the transmitted memory of a training session with Orochimaru; Kana frowned and threw up a mental wall so she could think in private.

What was she going to do with her? Send her back to the Leaf? The Shimis might try to execute her in secret, or Danzo would get his hands on her and send her right back to Orochimaru. Actually, he'd probably just take her for himself - like Kabuto said, children were easily manipulated and this kid was already exuding an almost stoic jadedness. It wouldn't take much to get her to buy into Root's creed.

But she could also be adopted into the Shimi clan and raised to be a proper shinobi... A replacement Kana.

Speaking of which, what did this mean for the Kana line? It wasn't as if she knew her given name, and she couldn't just go back to the Leaf and live out her days with whatever name the clan assigned her with, so did she just name herself? Did she continue on with the Kana title? If she was totally honest with herself it definitely felt strange to keep used the clan's sacred title if she wasn't the only one out there...

 _"Don't you want to know your real name, 'Kana'? Don't you want to have a **place** in this world?!"_

 _"You **want** it - you want it **so** badly! But you won't take it! Why?!"_

She shut out Kabuto's words with an angry huff, as if she could somehow feel her indignant attitude towards his manipulative offer. Crazy bastard.

Did he really have to kill his mother..?

Kana screwed her eyes shut and mentally slapped herself - no, this wasn't the time for that. She looked up to watch Yuki work as she began working on the stitched up wound Haru had on her chest. It seemed to be common among the group, actually... A vast amount of the shinobi here had incisions over their hearts and spines as if they had undergone surgery. It looked like those with dojutsus underwent ocular surgery, or had their eyes removed entirely, and she tried not to cringe.

Reaching under the mask that she had sewn into the turtleneck of her jumpsuit to itch her nose, Kana narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, "Hey, out of curiosity, how many of you have a kekkei genkai?"

Every one of the shinobi that raised their hands, save three that looked to be in excellent shape with their chakra depletion aside, had an incision over their heart or on their spine, if not both. Did those two points have some sort of interaction with bloodline traits? To be fair, it wasn't as if a ton was known on what exactly caused a clan's bloodline trait, or what maintained it. The general consensus was that it was simply just a part of one's DNA, such as a mutated gene, but what if it had more to do with the central nervous system or the heart?

Something to think about for another time. "Hey, stuff like that requires a slow and steady chakra flow," Kana called when the kid started using a burst of chakra on a broken femur, "Too much for too long will only do more damage."

So far it looked like Yuki had pretty steady chakra control, but she seemed to not understand how much of it to apply to the deeper and more severe wounds. Once she got the hang of it, though, it looked like Yuki already knew exactly how to fix it. Kabuto must have focused more on teaching her how the human body works, rather than teaching her how to fix it. Made sense - he probably thought he'd have more time to get to that later.

"How exactly did you find us, if you don't mind me asking?" one of the Stone-nin asked curiously; the group turned their eyes from the glowing-eyed child back to the kunoichi that was leaning against Hanako.

"My teammate found Unko's mask," she answered, rubbing at tired eyes.

Over the course of the next few minutes, Kana proceeded to explain how Kisame told her where he had picked up the mask, and how she ended up breaking into Tsunade's office to see if her suspicions were just a hunch or not. She recalled time spent pouring over the report file that specified the Anbu that went missing and running different theories through her head. Kana talked about the moment where she had basically stumbled across a Sand shinobi that had recently run in with the Sound-nin, who confirmed that Anbu from multiple villages were being taken before Kana took off with her summon.

Of course, she made sure to leave out names and some rather incriminating details, such as using Raido to break the seal on the office and having Danzo unseal the file, but the group didn't seem to mind how a few situations were glossed over.

 _'Kid, that's enough. Don't wear yourself out,'_ she reached out a hand to Yuki, who finished up healing a Suna shinobi's chest wound before trotting over to kneel next to Kana. "Anyways, those of you that have sensor-type abilities, and are well enough for it, will take four-hour watch rotations in pairs," she said to the rest of the group, "We're going to rest here until tomorrow morning, then head our separate ways."

* * *

"Captain"

Kana deactivated her dojutsu with a sigh, "I'm not your captain," she said coolly, "Just because I'm not wearing my cloak right now doesn't mean I've left the Akatsuki."

With a shrug, Torune gingerly sat against the boulder she was leaning on, "You were crying earlier."

"That doesn't make me your captain."

"You used to cry a lot when you first joined Root," he said in a quiet voice, "We could hear you in the showers when you thought no one was around. We all knew why but we didn't know what to do."

The first couple of months had been absolute hell. Kana cried nearly every time she found herself alone with her thoughts, burying her face in her hands to muffle the sounds of her sobs that echoed off of the cold metal walls of the foundation's headquarters.

She turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow, "Is that why I kept finding things in my bunk?"

There would be moments where the kunoichi would come back to the barracks, either being nearly dragged by another Root agent or about to collapse from exhaustion, and would find random items under her pillow or stashed in her blankets. Small candies, wrapped rice balls, Icha Icha Strap, a pair of thumbless gloves... Kana never knew who was putting them there with the exception of an inked sketch of a hummingbird flying around some gladiolus and anemone that was obviously from Sai.

"It was Sai's idea," Torune nodded, "You know... You were the reason he started learning to act normal."

A dark chuckle bubbled up Kana's chest as she shook her head, "Please tell me he's gotten better at it?" That feline smile he always wore around her was nothing short of creepy even if she knew that he was genuinely trying to look pleasant.

"I can't say," he admitted with a frown.

The kunoichi reached up to run the scarred pad of her thumb across Torune's chin, "You two were always my favorites..." It was always so easy for her to talk with them.

He looked up to meet her gaze curiously. He was always so curious. "But we're all the same..."

That was bullshit. Danzo knew that you couldn't completely eradicate someone's nature, you just need to make that _person_ believe that you could. In the time Kana had spent in Root, she was able to notice the little details that the agents had - the little things that set them apart as individuals.

She shook her head with a small, tender smile, "No, you just _think_ that you are... You know, I could always tell what you were feeling just by looking at your mouth..."

Torune's mouth tightened, as if he had been caught doing something naughty, and Kana couldn't help but giggle softly at the confused expression he gave her.

"It's true," she murmured, running her thumb over his chin again, "Your mouth, Fu's hands, and Sai's eyes..." Kana dropped her hand back into her lap as she began to feel longing nibble away at the hole in her chest for the first time in months, "You're all more expressive than you think."

His mouth twitched upwards in the smallest, most subtle of smiles and he turned his eyes up to the dark starry sky, "When Lord Danzo conscripted you into the foundation, we all thought that he was planning to make you his successor, you know," he said quietly.

Mirroring his actions, the kunoichi looked up to watch a cloud begin to pass over the crescent moon that provided only a little bit of light through the trees they were camped beneath, "As much as I hated him?" Kana gave a half-hearted chuckle at the thought, "If anyone is going to take over Root, it'll probably be Hyo." Hyo was the only other Captain in the foundation at the time of her departure and was both freakishly devoted to Danzo, as well as being extremely skilled. He was also the first bastard that tailed her around the village to make sure she wasn't going to defect.

"Hyo would be a proper successor," Torune agreed, "However... I believe that the shinobi that takes over as the head of Root should be one that is capable of caring for its members and the village, and we thought of you as our den mother. It makes sense in my mind, at least."

Kana raised an eyebrow in response but didn't answer, if only because he raised an interesting point. Danzo had intentionally raised the agents from young ages to be completely devoid of any emotion; they were incapable of truly caring for the Leaf or anyone else. It would actually make sense that the foundation's head would need to be capable of feeling warmth and love for Konoha, if he was to make decisions in its favor.

As for caring for Root members... An angry spark ignited in her gut at the reminder. Danzo didn't _care_ about his agents. None of the high-ranking village officials _cared_ about the shinobi - they were only pawns that could be used for their own benefit. Kana had learned this when the Third had made Itachi go into exile, which was when she had learned that being loyal to one singular being like a Kage was a recipe for disappointment. It was when she had put her trust and loyalty into her village and her comrades.

To think that so much like this had been going on within the shadows... No wonder they were called Kages.

* * *

Kana drank the last of the water that was in her canteen, tilting her head back as the final drops dripped onto her tongue, before dropping the metal canister into her lap with a sigh, "You all ready?"

The group looked up from each other, their murmurs trailing off into silence, and nodded together. It was interesting to see which ones held authority in their villages - they were the ones that stood up from their groups to help others to their feet.

"The Hidden Stone thanks you again for your assistance, Yokai," the tallest man said tiredly. Most of them didn't sleep well throughout the night, if at all.

Kana remained silent and picked herself up from the ground to motion at the Leaf Anbu that were huddled together, "The girl goes with you," she reached out to help pull a Sand shinobi up to her feet, "I want you to make sure that Lord Hiashi is aware that she has been returned to the Shimi Clan so they can't try to throw her out again."

With a nod of understanding the Leaf shinobi agreed to her order, with one reaching out to take Yuki's hand, but the little girl shook her head in an almost violent protest and shoved Imai away to rush over to Kana.

 _'You said you would take me with you,_ ' she grabbed one of her tattooed arms and squeezed tightly, _'You promised!_ '

Kana pulled her arm away, only for it to be clung to even tighter, "I said I would make sure I would get you some place _safe_ ," she said sternly, "Where I'm going isn't safe, and I'm not the type of person you need to be around."

Again, Yuki shook her head hard enough for the woman to vaguely hear the sound of teeth clacking against one another, and tears began to cause her already glowing eyes to shimmer like two offensively bright stars, _'I don't want to be safe! I want to be with you!'_

While Kana wasn't affected much by her words, the tone and the thoughts racing through the child's head were enough to pierce through the layer of resolve she had built up. When she was Yuki's age, how many times had the kunoichi begged the universe for an opportunity like this? How many times had she wished for someone else that was born with the same abilities? How long had Kana thought that it would be so much easier if there was just one person that could relate to her?

This child had just been abandoned by the one person that she had put on a pedestal and adored above no one else - she had been left to die by the only person she cared for. Now, Yuki was being presented with what she knew was a one-in-a-lifetime event where she had crossed paths with another Kana; it was something that she knew, if only through Kana's thoughts, was something that might never happen again.

Could... Could she do that?

Could she make Yuki live with that same isolation and desperation that Kana herself could barely handle at times?

She looked up at the varying expectant and confused expressions that looked back at her from the scattered clusters of shinobi. There were too many risks bringing the child with her, but Kana knew that there were just as many if she sent Yuki back to the Leaf. Especially if the village made another agreement to sell their shinobi to Orochimaru.

The hand that had been hanging limp by her side twisted up and out of the child's grip to snake around to the back of her head, pulling her into Kana's body in a protective, yet awkward, hold. She could _kill_ Danzo and the rest for what they did. If Hiruzen wasn't already dead, Kana wouldn't think twice about assassinating him. The only reason Danzo was safe from her wrath was because Kana was too concerned about what would happen to her Root brethren if he weren't there to lead him.

Anger flashed through her chest, which somehow soothed the guilty tightening from earlier. Her brothers and sisters... Sold to a madman who didn't even have any power on his own to begin with. They had been sold to a man that used them for torture and experimentation, then turned them into mindless loyalists that would eventually attack the village they used to call home.

The answer was no; Kana couldn't entrust Yuki's safety with the Leaf.

It wouldn't be until Konoha was under new leadership that she would be able to call it home again.

With her mind made, she tugged on the child's hair to pull her back a bit so Kana could bring her hand back around and use two fingers to poke Yuki's forehead, who stumbled back with a startled expression.

"Change of plans," she said coolly, meeting the collective gazes of the Leaf-nin and ignoring the excited thoughts that raced through Yuki's head, "The girl's coming with me -"

"But, Cap'n, even you said that it ain't _safe_ fer her out here," Haru cut in, eyes wide with surprise.

The Hyuga next to her nodded, brow furrowed thoughtfully, "Do not misunderstand, ma'am," he added calmly, "We all trust your judgement, but do you truly believe that this is best for her?"

Kana bit her lip, which was hidden by the cloth mask, and fought the urge to sit them all back down to fill them in on everything that had been going on - all of the secrets and shady doings of their leaders - in the last ten or fifteen years. As much as she wanted them to know, and as much as she knew that they deserved to know what they were fighting to protect, the part of Kana that had been tasked with keeping secrets on behalf of the village knew that there were too many variables in the situation.

There was no way for her to know if the other shinobi that didn't know her would even believe her, or if they'd accuse her of lying. They could believe her and leave the service, or go into early retirement. They could become missing-nin - either leaving their villages to live a civilian life, or creating a terrorist organization like the Akatsuki. They could band together to start a revolt. They could stay docile, but no longer trust their leaders and question their orders.

The reason the Anbu Black Ops was such a successful division was because they had complete trust in their villages and their leaders. Any shift in their trust meant that it could turn the system into a very fragile one, and Kana couldn't risk that without knowing what kind of consequences would come from it.

"Her being found in Orochimaru's compound already says that Konoha can't keep her safe," she said solemnly while pulling her goggles up over her eyes, "The Akatsuki will protect their own."

It was probably a poor choice of words, but the shinobi didn't bother with continuing to argue; they already knew that there were things going on that couldn't be brought to light just yet.

Imai stepped - or, rather, limped - forward with the aide of another shinobi to place a hand on her shoulder, "If you need anything, Captain..."

She shook her head and stepped away from her former comrade, "I just need you to treat me like an enemy, from here on out," she looked down at the child that was clinging to her hip, "I'm not an Anbu captain anymore. I'm a rogue-nin, a member of the Akatsuki, and you need to remember that."

* * *

 **Note** : LOL sorry it took so long for me to update this. I've started working on another story, which might not get posted here because I feel like the Misc. Game category just doesn't get enough attention. I also had to deal with some person issues, as well as get post-PAX work done. I had half of a mind to just leave it at that and be like "LOL NOPE SHE'S DED 4 REEL" but I just have too many fun things planned for Kana.

That being said, my husband threw away my two favorite sketches of her and I'm trying to recreate them so I can color them and actually have story images. But it's hard to recreate something that was kind of perfect :c Poop.


	17. Chapter 17

It didn't take long for Kana to learn that, despite undergoing regular training with Orochimaru, the child wasn't particularly fast, and didn't have much endurance.

She considered just dumping her with Itachi, but immediately realized that it would require her to answer a whole lot of questions that she didn't have the time for. As a result, Kana found herself sitting at the base of a tree for the third time that day to take a break while the kid guzzled down water.

"Let's go over a couple of ground rules," she finally said, deciding that it was time to cover a few topics while she waited for Yuki to rest up. When she looked up from the metal canteen, which had to be nearly empty by now, Kana took the cue to continue.

"You're here only because I no longer trust the Leaf with the safety of its people," she kept her tone cool and hard as she explained their situation, "I am not your sister, or mother figure. I will train you to be strong, and keep you safe. In return you will do what I ask of you without question, you will not disobey my orders, and you will not speak to anyone other than myself and the two men I travel with. Do you understand these terms?"

Yuki blinked for less than a second before nodding silently, conveying emotions that made it clear that she had already expected an arrangement like this. Well, that went easier than Kana had expected it to; must be the result of being raised by a pair of madmen with boners for power.

The child looked up just a beat after Kana skidded to stand in front of her, one hand on Kioku and the other ready to form the seal to teleport away, _'Hold onto me.'_

Obito appeared in an orange, black and red swirling blur just as a small hand slid around her thigh.

"Ah, the Akatsuki's very own moonlighter, in the flesh," he purred, "I trust you found what you came all the way out here for."

Kana bristled at the man's greeting and tightened her fingers around the hilt of her katana, "Get to the point."

The pair twisted slightly when the masked individual began to walk over to lean at the base of a nearby tree, folding his arms over his chest and crossing one ankle over the other in what she knew was a false display of a casual demeanor. "You're still so hostile. To think I came bearing a rather promising proposition for you."

Proposition? Kana's brow knitted as he spoke – through her talks with Itachi she knew that, while Obito was absolutely the manipulative type, he wasn't a person that blew smoke up the ass of someone that was already distrusting. It was entirely possible that the man was here with a legitimate deal.  
After everything she had just learned… Kana felt like he was more trustworthy than most others.

She released the katana to pull a scroll from her tool belt and whip it open, summoning a marked kunai that appeared in a small puff of white smoke. With a turn of her wrist she snatched it out of the air and wrapped the blade in chakra before flinging it to the side hard enough for it to slice through two trees and a boulder like they were butter.

"Go find the knife," she ordered without looking away from Obito, "Don't move once you've found it. I'll come to you when we're finished."

Yuki wasted no time in taking off in the direction of the kunai, Kurogan activated and focused on her task. When she was far enough for Kana to be sure that she was out of earshot, the kunoichi narrowed her eyes from behind her goggles, "Don't waste my time."

Obito clicked his tongue and sighed, "If I didn't have other matters to attend with I would ask what I did to earn such cold treatment from ally, but there are more pressing matters."

Kana didn't answer, but shifted her weight from one foot to the other when she watched him produce a standard-sized scroll with a paper seal slapped over the edge.

"Alliances are give-and-take relationships, so let me give you something as a token of my reliability," he explained, holding out the scroll, "You want to undo those pesky curse marks placed by Danzo Shimaru and Orochimaru, do you not?" he asked in a tone that said they both knew the answer.  
She eyed the scroll for a few long, silent moments. It came as no surprise that the man that went by the moniker of Madara Uchiha would have the ability to release curse marks; it was the cost that came with it that Kana was suspicious of. "Tell me what you want."

"Your succor," he answered flatly, "You are one of the final pieces to my plan to finally bring peace to this world, and the response you gave to my question when we last spoke was not suitable."

Plan for peace? The kunoichi blinked several times as the gears in her mind began to turn. It wasn't so much surprising that Obito had plans to use members of the Akatsuki for whatever he was scheming, it was just bizarre that he demanded some kind of blind allegiance just for the removal of a curse mark that granted power, and one that basically just made select conversations a bitch and a half.

Taking the scroll from his outstretched hand, Kana felt her frown deepen, "You're asking for devotion by offering the removal of a minor annoyance."

"Do not take me for a selfish man, Kageri."

For the second time in as many minutes, Kana found herself staring stupidly at Obito for a good long while as her brain struggled to make sense of what he had just said. He was only in his late twenties, so it wasn't as if he was old enough to become senile, but did he seriously just mistake her for someone else? Had he really become so twisted by his past that he had finally snapped and turned into a madman?

No… The way he spoke and carried himself wasn't typical of insane men. He was cool and calm, and Itachi wouldn't align trust someone that was off his rocker with as much information as he did. Obito wasn't the type to make jokes, either – not outside of his Tobi façade.

When it finally clicked, she felt her heart flutter uncomfortably in surprise and had to make a conscious effort to maintain her stony expression.

Kageri… _Shadow_ … It was fitting.

Obito pushed himself off of the tree to take a step towards Kana, "I do not expect you to pledge allegiance to my cause so blindly, and surely not for something as trivial as the knowledge of your individual identity and the removal of the curse marks," he explained calmly, taking another step in the kunoichi's direction, "These are merely… Tokens of my gratitude for prolonging Itachi's life for as long as you have. When you initially left Konoha, I had doubts about your ability as a medical shinobi – these are doubts that have since vanished as you have proven yourself by maintaining his health."

Throwing up a barrier between them, Kana wordlessly took a step back and readied herself to teleport to the girl. There was something very, very menacing and calamitous about the aura that surrounded the masked man that continued to leave her feeling just as unsettled as when they first met. She could see that his chakra was definitely a large part of the cause, like a black typhoon that raged within him, but Kana knew that a lot of the atmosphere about him was caused by his persona itself.

"Sasuke has slain Orochimaru and intends for Itachi to be the next to fall by his hand," Obito continued as if completely unaware of her sharp intake of breath, "You will watch him die, unlock your Mangekyo Sharingan –"

"It's not _mine_ ," Kana cut in, the first words she had spoken in many long minutes spoken in a wavering voice. The Sharingan wasn't hers – it would always be Izumi's.

The masked man nodded very subtly, moving only enough to express his agreement, "The visual prowess bestowed unto you was done so without the knowledge nor the consent of an Uchiha, stolen from Itachi's lover the night her soul departed this world," he said coolly, "But you are a rare breed of human that merged with the blood of the Uchiha in a way that allows you to control that visual prowess in such a way that no other non-Uchiha has been capable of, and I intend to grant you the power to wield it to its fullest extent."

So Obito was intending to help her use the Sharingan on his level? Why? How?

As if sensing her thoughts, he continued, "Should you choose to accept my offer, I will merge some of my DNA with yours so that you may inherit the Uchiha's legacy and maintain absolute control over the Mangekyo Sharingan. You will become the Leaf's accursed child, bearing both the Uchiha's Curse of Hatred and the Shimi's Curse of Despair as a symbol of the world's own grim nature."

Too mentally and emotionally drained from the events of the last two days, with the appearance of Yuki, the knowledge of the Leaf selling their shinobi and the understanding that Itachi was slated to die much sooner than she expected, Kana finally felt the last piece of her long-since shattered heart to finally crumble away. She stared blankly at Obito, who she could see was staring right back at her with an unwavering gaze that was as intense as his chakra signature, and reached out to the kunai to make sure that the child was still far enough away.

It wasn't as if she bought into the Konoha curses; Kana knew that it was no different than the mumbo jumbo that the Shimi regularly spewed out about the Kanas and their own grotesque rituals. And it wasn't as if she wanted to live life with Obito literally living inside of her but, on the other hand, it would be immensely beneficial to be able to use the Sharingan without nearly passing out from excruciating pain.

There was one thing that genuinely bothered her, though, and, after a long silence, she opened her mouth to ask, "What makes you think that I want this?"

"Because your devotion to your people overrides any devotion you have to a single leader, and your disdain for the delusions of your clan members left you isolated and alone," Obito answered without missing a beat; he must have come prepared, "You never felt that you were a true Shimi, refusing to accept their ideologies, and found yourself more at home walking the streets of the Uchiha district with Itachi and his bouncing baby brother."

Kana narrowed her eyes as he spoke but didn't grant him a response. While the majority of his claims were true, wouldn't it make more sense to say that she was more of a Hyuga? She had practically raised Neji on her own, who had all but been forsaken by his uncle, and even shared a similar dojutsu.

"Like the Uchiha, you were betrayed by the Leaf. You know of their covenant with Orochimaru – you recognize that it was not the only pact of its kind, held in secrecy from the rest of the world…" Obito took another step forward so that he was mere centimeters from the wall of chakra that would burn his clothes and sear his flesh upon contact, his one exposed eye never breaking the intense gaze they held. "You always understood that you were never truly a Shimi. I can rectify the mistake that nature made, should you choose to accept my proposal. Allow me to bestow my lineage and power unto you, and you will be able to be a playing part of a series of events that will free this world of the endless loop of self-destruction that it has found itself in."

Swirling eyes flashed behind her goggles as her mind struggled to make sense of the reasoning Obito was providing. Even if Obito was trying to promise her to be finally bound to Itachi and Sasuke in the way she always wished she could have been, he had yet to actually explain what she would be helping him achieve. The deliberately vague description of what he had in store for the shinobi world wasn't something she could ignore.

"Now, the real issue..." Kana sighed as she dropped the barrier and took a step forward in a show of pride; she wasn't going to let him think that he had some sort of control over her, "This plan of yours. What is it?"

Obito walked over to a tree to rest against it, much like how he did earlier, and waved for the kunoichi to do the same.

"Seat yourself, Kageri," he purred, "For you to fully understand the Eye of the Moon, you must first learn of what the history texts fail to mention of Madara Uchiha."

* * *

It was nearly dark when the pair finally went their separate ways, Obito disappearing in a swirling blur of colors while Kana formed the seal to teleport to the marked kunai. Just as she had ordered, the child was sitting on the ground next to the knife, which was mostly buried in the trunk of a tree, looking bored out of her wits and softly humming to herself while drawing patterns into the dirt.

Grey hair bounced as Yuki's head snapped up in alarm at the kunoichi's sudden appearance, looking both shocked and in complete awe at the technique.

 _'Can you teach me how to do that?'_

Kana, too drained to respond, studied the girl's face as she sprung to her feet with an eager expression. Despite having been trained in the ways of the shinobi, she continued to be so expressive and lively; Yuki was the complete opposite of the type of person Kana was when she was a child.

She reached into the large pouch strapped to her hip and fished out the worn Anbu mask that had since been retired, glancing down at it for just a moment before handing it to the girl and saying, "Until you can control your expressions, wear this."

Yuki eyed the mask suspiciously for just a beat, until she remembered that she had agreed to never question or defy Kana's orders. She quickly took it from her master's outstretched hand to strap it to her own face, which was a little too small for the fox-shaped mask and rendered the straps useless. As a result, it slipped down to her neck where it flopped about her collar uselessly.

With despairing eyes Yuki pushed forward a flurry of apologetic thoughts until the kunoichi had to activate her own Ishikigan to slam away the panicked emotions that threatened to bring tears to her giant doe-like eyes. When she had been forcefully reverted into a calmed state, Kana yanked the kunai out from the bark that imprisoned its blade and handed it over to the child.

"Use this to refit the straps," she deactivated the dojutsu and jumped into the branches without another word.

* * *

"Where the hell have you been?!"

Kana ignored Kisame as she appeared in the center of the inn room, holding the child close to her side as to not lose her in the teleportation. The twisted chakra signature, the imbalance in the air, hit her harder than the significant change in temperature, and a quick scan of the room told her that it was because of Itachi.

"Who the _fuck_ \- what, did our talk about your broken ovaries prompt you to _adopt_?"

She was already in the bathroom and kneeling next to the dark-haired man, who was draped over the toilet bowl and retching up what looked like most of the blood in his body, if the red blossoms scattered across the seat and the harsh red toilet water were anything to go by. Itachi's shoulders trembled between each violent heave, and sweat dripped down his too-pale face and neck.

As he vomited up another wave of blood that splashed back up against his cheek, Kana channeled chakra to her hands and counted the days she had been gone. Half of a week to locate Orochimaru's hideout, two days to travel to Iwa and get intel, one day spent with Obito... It had been a full week - twice as long as Kana had intended to be away.

She settled behind Itachi to hold him from behind, hands settled over his chest and stomach, before a gentle flow of healing chakra began to flow into his necrotizing organs. "I'm sorry, 'Tachi," Kana whispered, "I'll make it better."

They were silent for a few long minutes, with the exception of the sickening sounds of vomiting, as the chakra blanketed itself around Itachi's insides, filling the perforation in his gastrointestinal system with newly grown tissue, and filtering out the fluid buildup in his lungs. The fact that he had gotten to this state after just a week-long break from daily therapy stood testament to just how aggressive his Microscopic Polyangitis had become.

 _"Sasuke has slain Orochimaru and intends for Itachi to be the next to fall by his hand."_

Obito's words, spoken in such a cold tone as if Itachi's life meant nothing, rang through her head.

 _"You will watch him die, unlock your Mangekyo Sharingan."_

Kana screwed her eyes shut. She had known that this would come, that the end of the road would have to be approached eventually, but Kana, like she had with her departure from the Leaf, had just told herself that it would be far away - that Itachi would be out here for another ten years before his time finally came. The kunoichi had been riding on the hope that her training would be enough to keep him alive until the end of Sasuke's training, never taking into account the possibility of Sasuke choosing to end his training preemptively. Kana had never expected him to advance so quickly when his skills prior to leaving the village had been just slightly above average.

But, now, compartmentalizing it and pushing it away wouldn't be enough for Kana to ignore what was so glaringly apparent.

Itachi was dying.

He was dying quickly.

As if on cue more blood gushed past his swollen lips, but it was beginning to lessen in volume and intensity. One of his hands slid down from the toilet seat, which he had been gripping hard enough for his knuckles to burn white, to rest over the one that was tenderly placed over his stomach. Itachi opened his mouth as if to say something, but could only gasp and wheeze as sweat trickled down past his lip and into his mouth.

"D-don't..." he panted after a few more moments of struggling, "Leave... Don't... Don't leave... Any..."

Kana rested her forehead against his drenched shoulder and felt the shattered fragments of her heart, held together only by the painful grip wrapped around it, begin to crumble away.

"I won't," she promised, "I won't leave you again. I'll stay with you."

Itachi's blood-shot eyes slide shut at her vow, and there was a noticeable change in his demeanor when some of the tension bled out of his back. It occurred to her that he had been worried about dying alone - that he had considered the possibility of Kana leaving him in his final days. He knew about the... Whatever it was between her and Kisame, and wondered if his partner would leave with her.

A pang of guilt struck her straight in the chest and she whispered quiet apologies into the shoulder of her best friend.


	18. Chapter 18

"Kisame..."

The Kiri-nin looked up from the sword in his lap to see a familiar figure lingering in the doorway.

"Taking a break from playing _mommy_ today?" he sneered while finishing up on Samehada's maintenance.

Like with every other joke he attempted to crack in the last eleven days, Kana didn't respond with one of her usual witty quips or irritated eye rolls and if it weren't for the slight tightening in the skin around her eyes, Kisame would have thought she hadn't heard him. Instead, she only blinked and stepped into his room while quietly shutting the door behind her.

Whatever it was, it happened when she left to collect intel on his assignment. Kana had been gone for longer than necessary, taking a week to execute a job that usually only required three if she felt like dragging her feet, and when she appeared back in the inn room... There was something different.

"The man that came to you... Madara Uchiha..."

At first he didn't know what it was, but Kisame had felt it the second she was near. It wasn't until she emerged from the bathroom after tending to Itachi's needs that he saw the stark difference in Kana's demeanor - most notably, her eyes. Her eyes emitted only a dull glow, as opposed to the usual bright starry shine he was accustomed to seeing, and they gazed back at him with a disturbingly blank expression.

Even if she was looking at him in that moment, it was obvious that she wasn't _seeing_ him. It was as if Kana was staring straight _through_ him.

Whatever had happened, it broke something inside of her.

"You said that he had a plan for peace."

Kisame nodded and set his sword to the side now that it was properly wrapped, attentive to the way her voice wavered, "Yeah, it involved something called-"

"The Eye of the Moon... The Infinite Tsukiyomi," she answered quietly.

Alarm flashed through the Mist shinobi, and he stood up from the tatami floor to take a step towards her, "He approached you?"

For the first time in nearly two weeks Kana exuded some sort of expression other than a hollow blankness as she ignored his question and asked, "Do you think it'll work..?" The glow in her eyes brightened, but that may just have been the light being refracted in the tears that welled up in them, "Do you... Do you think he can create..." Kisame watched her throat pulse as she swallowed in a vain attempt at keeping her voice from cracking, "Can we make a world where no one has to die anymore... Where everyone can stop hurting?"

The Seven Ninja Swordsmen didn't fall in love. It wasn't practical; there was no point in becoming so attached to a person that it clouded their judgement and made them foolish.

Love was a trivial luxury that Kisame had no need for, nor did he deserve it.

However, there was no way that the shinobi could deny that there was an icy pain in his chest when he heard the hitch in Kana's breath He would be a liar if Kisame didn't admit to himself that he felt an overwhelming need to pull his trembling little bird into his arms, and make the anguish written all over her face go away, when the tears began to fall.

 _His_ trembling little bird.

Kisame almost laughed at himself. He would have, if she wasn't still looking up at him with every sign of a complete breakdown. Then, the words she had spoken finally clicked, and the pain in his chest grew stronger and he found himself closing the distance between them to wipe at her cheeks.

"Yeah, it'll work," he murmured into her hair, "We'll make this world better, Little Bird. I promise you that."

That must have been what she wanted to hear, because no sooner than he finished his promise, Kana's shoulders relaxed under his arms and he felt her rest her face against his chest.

"We... We'll make it better," Kisame heard her whisper, "We'll save it..."

The Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist did not make love but, that afternoon, he took her in a way he had never taken others in the past. He had never held someone the way he did then, cradling that odiously thin and freezing body against his own like doing so would shield Kana against from the reality of whatever she had experienced in the week she had been away. Kisame carefully eased himself into her body, paying special attention to any signs of discomfort, and listened to her sighs and gasps as he rocked his hips and traced the outline of her face with his lips to help her relax. He had never cared about the pleasure of his past partners, but took every step he could to ensure her comfort in that moment.

He relished in the way Kana's hands, so soft and cold against the heat of his own skin, trailed along his body as if she was trying to memorize each curve and scar that her fingers caressed. His eyes slid shut at the way her lips fluttered over Kisame's like a drunken butterfly, and savored the sweet taste of her saliva when his tongue slipped into her mouth to graze against her own.

Kisame did not love, but the soft sounds she made that danced over the shell of his ear, and the way she whispered his name when he brought her to her peak, was like music that took him over into that same bliss just moments later. It felt like every nerve ending in his body lit up as his hips came to a stuttering halt, and he could only bury his face in the pillow with her body pressed flush against his as he rode out their shared orgasm.

It was a tenderness he had never experienced before, a moment that was entirely different from their previously shared night together. And, unlike last time, they didn't immediately pull apart when it was over - no, he found himself hovering over Kana and brushing his face against hers while they both caught their breath.

When they finally separated Kisame saw that, despite his best efforts, there was still blood mixed into the semen that oozed out over her thighs. He found himself lowering himself to run his tongue over the sickly pale flesh of her thighs, chuckling softly at the way she gasped and ran her fingers through his spiky blue hair when he grazed her most sensitive parts. That hand drifted down to rest over his chest when he came back up to rest beside her, and that was the moment Kisame realized that his heart was still racing.

Swordsmen did not love, but he realized how open he had allowed himself to be as he pulled Kana into his arms to whisper in her ear. He hated the thought of feeling vulnerable. Kisame was the Tailless Tailed Beast, the Monster of the Hidden Mist, a man feared by shinobi from nations spanning the globe. The word _weak_ was not one used to describe him.

For the first time in his life Kisame felt vulnerable to the one person that ever shared a bed with him, and it was obvious that she was the same way. However, at the sight of the woman curled into him, the soft sounds of her quiet sobs and the feeling of her tears on his flesh, he couldn't bring himself to care. He couldn't bring himself to care when Kana's eyes flashed, hours later, as she brought her shoulder up to his mouth in silent offering; a roguish smile played on the lips he parted before sinking his teeth into that sickly pale flesh to add to the two rings of scars which circled her shoulder.

Kisame didn't love, but he always was fond of birds.

And his favorite bird was the one that fell asleep with her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

* * *

 **Note** : Not to spoil the mood, but I'm watching Criminal Minds right now and it's the episode in season ten with the guy that likes birds. I'm kind of creeped out at the coincidence lol.


	19. Chapter 19

"I just don't understand why we're dragging a kid around."

For the umpteenth time that day, Kana sighed and ducked under a particularly nasty jet of water aimed for her face, "She's my responsibility now. I told you."

Kisame sidestepped Kioku, "It isn't that I don't get the fact that you destroyed the compound –" he yanked his sword back when it was caught between the katana and tanto, twisting it so that Kana's body was yanked to the side, "- But why not just take her back to the Leaf? Isn't it strange that your first instinct was to bring her with you?" A dry smirk crossed his features, displaying razor-sharp teeth that glinted in the sun as he swung Samehada to launch the kunoichi off of it, who had used its width to run up the length of the sword, "I know... You saw a child that looked like you, and all of those _maternal_ inst-"

He couldn't avoid the chakra-charged shuriken that cut through the rainy air, but was able to twist enough for them to slice through his flank without damaging anything too vital.

"Kisame, one more word and I will cut you hip-to-shoulder," Kana hissed before teleporting over to his side.

Alarm flashed in Kisame's beady white eyes when her katana and tanto carved out his right lung, a beat later, his sneer turned into an amused grin as he parried her attack, "You marked your shuriken," he plucked the single shuriken that had been lodged in his side, this one not having been wrapped in chakra so she could use the Flying Thunder God technique, " _Nice_."

Were his nerve endings so deadened from years of being severed and regrown that he could pull out a shuriken from his kidney and withstand having half of his chest cut out without even an eyebrow twitch?

Actually, considering the monumental ass-beating she gave him the first night they slept together... It made sense that a wound like that didn't hurt.

With her having won best three out of five in their contact game, Kana carefully held the handles of her two blades to reach into her hip pouch for her wiping cloth, "Yuki. Come here," she looked up to meet Kisame's gaze, "Can you keep going?"

His tone had a dark playfulness to it as he answered, "For you? I can go _all_ night."

Kana frowned.

Kisame laughed.

As the child trotted across the rainy glade to stand between the two shinobi, Kana finished wiping off her blades and stuffed the soiled cloth back into her pouch, "You remember what happened last time you got hit?"

Already pale skin paled further at the reminder of Samehada tearing through Yuki's leg caused her to visibly balk. She nodded silently.

"Kisame was pulling his punches," she stepped back to jump into the wet branches, "He's not going to provide the same luxury today."

A trickle of fear trickled through the child's chest and her muscles tensed in anticipation. As per their normal rules, she wasn't using her dojutsu and there was no countdown to give her a heads up or an opportunity to know when exactly to jump out of the way; Yuki had to rely entirely on her instincts to avoid being completely flattened.

Orochimaru had raised this kid to use her kekkei tota in a way that Kana had only managed after years and years of intensive training. It was like Yuki possessed an invisible Sharingan - an inherent ability to pick up any technique and jutsu thrown her way without even so much of a struggle.

Kisame's lips twitched upwards just a beat before his legs propelled him forward.

Watching Yuki train with the three of them made it very apparent that she was on a level above them; she was even more of a prodigy than Itachi and Kana had been when they were children, and could have easily been twice the shinobi they were. Her intelligence and chakra resevoir were nothing short of outstanding.

There was only a cloud of dust where the child had been previously standing. Samehada cut through the dust and swung around to block the shuriken that had been lobbed at his shoulder.

What Orochimaru had failed at, though, was creating a weapon. He had merely created a creature that excelled in ninjutsu.

With a graceless twist of her body Yuki jumped into the air and over Samehada, placing a foot on Kisame's shoulder to kick off of it to send herself jumping into the air. Her hands instinctively came together to form hand seals but seemed to remember that it would result in an immediate failure - instead, she reached into the pouch strapped to her left thigh to fling a kunai in his direction.

The backup movement was clumsy, however, and the throw was too wide to even come close to hitting the blue-skinned man that was already spinning around to go on the offensive.

Orochimaru had completely and utterly failed at teached the child to rely on her body and instincts, the very things that made her human, in battle. She didn't know how to watch the subtle movements of her opponent's body - a twitch in his bicep, a shift in footing - to predict what he was going to do next. Yuki had no understanding of bukijutsu or taijutsu. She only knew genjutsu and ninjutsu.

That wasn't a shinobi. A shinobi had to be more than magic tricks.

Kana watched as the two dashed around the glade like a cat and mouse. The young girl, not even old enough to be enrolled into a ninja academy, danced about Kisame's sword like a tiny pixie, using small jumps as opposed to great bounds to keep herself just out of his reach. It was smart - Yuki was using tight movements to maintain her speed and footing.

Even if it was smart, it didn't put enough distance between herself and Samehada; she was playing a very dangerous game.

Where Orochimaru failed, Kana would succeed.

Her eyes tracked the pair's movements while Yuki skirted past Kisame's water jutsu.

Kana would make her into a fantastic shinobi.

Better than herself. Better than Itachi.

Too-soft mud shifted away from the pressure of Yuki's foot as she ducked under a particularly strong swing from Kisame's sword. Even when she stabilized herself, stopping her ankle from rolling, she was suspended in a moment of vulnerability; it was a vulnerability that Kisame was going to take advantage of.

Lips curved downward into a disapproving frown.

Samehada slid between the child's arm and flank.

This fight was over.

Yuki's agonized cry filled the air as blood splashed over the grass that had been torn up by the exercise. Her masked face turned up towards Kana in a panicked, silent plea. Beside her, she could feel Itachi also turn his gaze towards her to see how she'd handle the situation.

"Get up."

Itachi's breath hitched and Kisame's grin turned curious.

 _'But, master -'_

"I said get _up_ ," Kana dropped down to the ground, "You're not stopping until you land a hit."

With a small, strained sound, the child picked herself up off of the ground and placed a hand over the gash on her rib cage with the soft tinkling of white healing chakra. She gasped when the hand was abruptly slapped away and gave Kana a horrified look that could be seen even through the mask that covered her face.

"Stanch the bleeding, but don't heal this," she said coolly.

Kisame raised a surprised eyebrow and his sneer widened, "Say, little bird, don't you think you're being a tad harsh?"

The gentle bell-like sound returned but Yuki didn't offer any protest; Kana stepped back and motioned for her companion to return to the offensive.

* * *

It was dark by the time their training day came to a close. They each took turns washing themselves off in the river that wound through the forest they were camping in, and Yuki was curled up under her bedroll next to the small fire that Kisame had started.

"You've become quite the harsh teacher, haven't you?"

Kana looked up at the inky night sky. The storm from earlier had long since moved on, so why was it still so dark? "Have I?" she asked quietly.

Below the thick rock separating them from the empty cavern, Kisame rolled over in with a disgruntled huff as he struggled to get to sleep.

The child didn't understand why each of their moods turned so sour after the Akatsuki meeting earlier that day.

"You were always the one that encouraged Sasuke and Neji when their teachers were strict," Itachi answered, leaning against her shoulder for support, "It was almost as if you were channeling my father earlier, except I think even he would have offered a break after the broken leg."

Kana let her head rest against his as her perpetual frown deepened, "She needs to learn what it means to be a shinobi. She'll understand when she's older."

There was a long pause where the only sounds came from the wind that rolled through the forest as the final legs of the storm that had passed earlier. When Itachi finally spoke, his voice was low and he spoke slowly. "And will you be the one to teach her?"

For a brief moment her brow knitted, and she opened her mouth to explain how it was obvious that it would be Kana to mentor and raise the child. When the true meaning of his question sunk in, though, she sighed and felt some of the crumbled remains of her heart blow away into dust with the steady breeze.

"When we were children, you told me that you became a shinobi so you could change this world," she felt Itachi's hand slip into her own, and pinched his fingertips lightly as she spoke, "You're out of time, and… I want to do it for you. I want to make the world better. Yuki can help me achieve that."

The Leaf-nin hummed, mirroring her gesture by pinching her own fingers, "You don't understand the relief I feel hearing that," he breathed, voice hardly audible over the gentle sounds of the forest surrounding them.

""Tachi… The day Madara approached me… I should have never asked that of you. It was selfish."

Kana could feel her friend shake his head softly, "We were taught from a young age that our lives were meaningless without a purpose. I understood why you asked for the Tsukiyomi, as much as it pained me to agree to it," Itachi's face turned up towards the inky sky, "I truly am sorry for everything, Kana. I never wished for things to turn out like this."

She tilted her head down from the sky to peer at him out of the corner of her eye, cheek brushing along his forehead as she did so. Pearly black eyes were gazing up at the sky, the soft shine of the moon reflecting, but Kana saw the subtle glaze that kept them from properly focusing. The life-prolonging eye drops and prolonged use of the Mangekyo had reduced Itachi's vision to a blurred mess where, in many instances, the only thing that guided him was the Ishikigan's ability to project one's own sight onto another.

"It's been so long since I've been able to view the stars," he whispered, "Are they out tonight?"

Taking Itachi's hand into her own, Kana laced their fingers together and turned her face back up, "They are. They're beautiful."

It was a lie.

Kana couldn't see the stars anymore.

* * *

Obito abhorred lying. It was a detestable act that never ceased to make him uncomfortable in his own skin every time he was reduced doing it, no matter how necessary the maneuver was.

The Shimi child was at the end of her wits. He could see it in the way she carried herself, shoulders curved downward in a defeated slump that only continued to sag as Itachi's health deteriorated. It hadn't taken much on his own part to put her on the edge of the cliff, most of the work having been done by the duplicitous deeds of the Hidden Leaf's leaders in years past. All he had done was ensure that she followed the path that he meticulously laid out before her.

Presenting Danzo with the collection of Sharingan in exchange for the girl wasn't one he was proud of making, all those years ago, but the eyes of his kin were each only worth a fraction of the potential that she carried in her own veins. It was by sheer coincidence that she would be outfitted with the eyes of Itachi's deceased lover, but one that he was sure would only further the destabilization of her mind.

And, in the end, each dead shinobi Obito had delivered to the Yakushi boy was like one more final step towards the edge of the chasm – he knew that her loyalty and misplaced fondness for her countrymen would be enough to place her on the very edge, teetering over the boundary of disillusionment. All it would take was Itachi's death to plunge her into the darkness he knew was already beginning to consume her.

The painful desperation she felt to keep the Uchiha alive would be, subsequently, her own downfall. It was what Obito needed to prey on to convince her agree to his terms – the girl was so wrapped up in her familial-like love for the brothers that he only needed to offer her a permanent bond that couldn't be shattered by the death of her beloved.

As if he cared about the continuation of the Uchiha lineage.

Nonetheless, lying made his skin crawl. Manipulation was something that Obito had no problem with, as long as there was an inkling of authenticity to each word he spoke. This world was nothing without truth.

His eyes drifted over to the alien body floating in preservatives.

If there were any reason for him to lie, it was about this. Obito knew that, at first, Kageri would be enraged to learn that he hadn't bonded his DNA to hers. She would no doubt scream vulgarities and throw an abominable fit that would result in something being broken; he had watched her long enough to know that the only way she knew how to express her tempest of emotions was through physical means.

When she settled down, however, he would explain how he had helped her become so much more than an Uchiha. Obito would explain how he and Madara laid in wait for many years for the birth of a new Kana – how her clan was the closest to the progenitors of this world, even to a greater degree than the Hyuga and Kaguya clans, and her kekkei tota was the pinnacle of that similarity.

The fact that she had taken so long to fully obtain both halves of her bloodline trait was something Obito considered to be an unfortunate disruption in his plans, as it meant he could not retrieve her from the village and groom her from childhood as he had hoped. That disruption only continued when Itachi insisted on leaving her in Konoha to watch over his brother, as opposed to taking her with him.

He had initially wanted Itachi in the Akatsuki for his bond with Kageri and his Mangekyo, unlocked by the unfortunate death of Shisui, but he had soon become a thorn in Obito's side. Fully aware of how precarious her mental state had become, Itachi had made it abundantly clear that he would attack one of his own kin to keep Obito far away from her – he had reminded him of that same threat years later when he approached the girl by the riverbed. While Itachi had always been exponentially more talented and skilled in virtually every department, he wasn't malleable like his baby brother was.

It wasn't long before he saw a silver lining in the disease that ravaged Itachi's body.

Once he was out of the picture then Obito could work on fusing the Shimi girl with the DNA of the being that had been brought to Madara by Zetsu so many years ago. Then, with Sasuke under his direction, he could influence him to damage his own eyes so that he would be convinced to utilize his brother's to awaken his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. The boy, like Kageri, was in a mental state where it would only take a push here and there for him to work against the Leaf and join Obito's cause.

He would allow Sasuke to play with the team of unremarkable misfits he had founded before sending him after the Eight Tails. Obito would need to use that time to find a way to end Nagato's feeble existence so he could obtain the Rinnegan, which had been granted to him as a child.

Obito folded his arms over his chest while idly watching the body subtly bounce with the movements of the the preservative fluid - the alien had been swaying on the very brink of death for so long that he occasionally wondered if it even could recall what it was like to be alive. He didn't actually _care_ , as it was merely a carefully maintained tool that would play a critical role in his execution of the Infinite Tsukiyomi, but it was a thought that crossed his mind every now and again when things grew quiet. A part of him regretted that such an exquisite creature that represented the beginnings of Earth was forced to live a miserable existence, only to die to become a human hybrid, but its novelty meant nothing in a world where humans slaughtered one another like animals. In a way, it was symbolic - the death of one of the progenitors of humanity would, in turn, bond with Kageri to become the knight on his chessboard that would bring about a new age. In its death, the death of suffering and pain would come forth.

He placed his mask back on his face with a sigh; it was time he planted yet another seed in his ever-growing garden.

* * *

 **Note** : Tra-la-laaa~ I initially was going to make this kind of a twist, but I thought it would be fun to provide insight to Obito's shady dealings before it all happened. The way I have future chapters written, it might have come off as a little too overwhelming if I just threw everything onto the reader at once. With Kana coping with her reality essentially having been shattered, the plans I had for behind-the-scenes Obito action, and plans I have for her in the future regarding the world war, I felt it would have been better to start working things in now so it doesn't get too confusing.

Poor Kana. She just wants to eat spicy barbecue.


	20. Chapter 20

There was something extremely cathartic about pushing your body to its very limits; it was something that Kana had always indulged in. The burning of your muscles as they struggled to keep up with the way you strained them, the feeling of sweat dripping down your skin in salty rivulets to drop down into the soil, the intensely satisfying feeling of knowing you pushed yourself a little further than last time… It was something that rarely ceased to bring Kana pleasure.

Yuki very clearly did _not_ share her sentiment.

Nearly sheet-white cheeks were red with the exertion of her exercise; the child scowled at the ground while closely following the three shinobi down the dirt path on her hands. There was a trail of tiny specks of blood that told Kana that her palms had begun to bleed at some point, but there was no effort made to repair the torn flesh.

Itachi had joked earlier about how her teachings were like an extreme brand of Guy's, to which she responded by reminding him how they both turned out to be near-legendary shinobi thanks to him, so it only made sense to push her harder than he had with them. She knew that Itachi was worried for Yuki's wellbeing, but it seemed that he respected her enough to leave the argument at that.

Small grunts and exhausted pants 0hung in the air as they passed through a secluded road that would take them through the Land of Fire. While Kisame had attempted to joke and tease Kana in failed attempts at getting her riled up to pass the time, even his voice was strained in a way that told those that knew him that he was forcing humor into what was otherwise a somber mood.

Each step forward made Kana feel as if her feet had gained a pound in weight. Every breath was like a noxious gas was filling her lungs until her chest burned. What part of her didn't crave to be in Itachi's presence for every waking moment wished that she was away on an assignment so she didn't have to walk in Itachi's death march.

When he walked into the hotel room just a week ago, both Kana and Kisame knew. He didn't need to explain where he had been. He didn't need to share the talks he had with Sasuke and Naruto. They could see the change in his posture and the way his unfocused eyes looked back at them.

There was a look a person wore once they had accepted death – it was an expression of serenity that was unique to a person that knew their time in this world was over. Itachi's calm was mixed with a relief that came from years of emotional anguish.

One year of intense training and two of tending to his every need had led up to this moment. This was what the last three years of Kana's life was for: so Itachi could die on his terms.

* * *

 _"Is that your baby brother?"_

 _Kana looked up from the squirming infant cradled in her arms, who grasped at the ends of her hair with the intent to pull them into his mouth, to see a dark-haired boy about her age approach the bench that she sat in. He was one of her classmates, a boy that was a part of the Uchiha clan, and he was carrying something square-shaped in his hands._

 _She shook her head, "Not really."_

 _The boy raised a curious eyebrow and came to a stop before her, "Are you babysitting?"_

 _"Sorta." It was difficult to explain the relationship that the Hyuga and Shimi clans shared, and Kana wasn't entirely interested in satisfying the curiosity of some random kid._

 _Neji suddenly managed to successfully grab two chunks of hair in his tiny baby fists and, with a delighted screech, yanked it around as if trying to show off his accomplishment to the world. The result was Kana nearly getting whiplash while desperately trying to peel the outrageously strong fingers out of their hold._

 _The Uchiha boy smiled warmly as he watched the scene unfold, "Is it a boy or a girl?"_

 _'Um, who **cares**?' she thought as Neji's inhuman baby strength was beginning to get the better of her, "Boy."_

 _"He likes hair?"_

 _Kana narrowed her eyes and finally managed to free one lock of hair while the other was pulled into the infant's mouth, "No, just mine, apparently," she sighed, "Just about everyone in our clans has long hair, but he only freaks out over **mine**."_

 _The Uchiha's smile widened and he turned to sit next to her on the bench, "My name is Itachi. We're in the same class together, you know."_

 _What did this kid want? Was he fascinated by babies? Did he want to start yanking on her hair, too? Kana finally gave up on rescuing the ends of her hair from the slobbery chamber of Neji's mouth and sat back with a sigh, keeping a close eye on him in case he went from sucking to actual attempts at eating. The last thing she wanted to do was explain to Uncle Hizashi how his only son had met his end at the ripe age of nine months by choking to death on her hair._

 _"Yeah."_

 _"Your name means Sadness, right?"_

 _Kana's head snapped up so she could glare at the kid next to her that still had that irritating as hell smile on his face, "What do you **want**?!"_

 _"You're almost a year younger than me, but you and I are going to graduate the Academy at the same time. I heard some of the teachers talking about it," Itachi said pleasantly, completely unperturbed by the sudden display of irritation, "I thought it would be good to get to know one another, since we're going to be put on the same team..." The square object, which had been placed next to his thigh when he sat down, came up to rest between their seated hips, "You also forgot your bento box in the classroom."  
_

 _… Huh._

 _She had been expecting for him to ask a million questions about her kekkei tota, like everyone else did, so his response had completely caught her off guard. All she could do was blink stupidly at him as Neji squirmed impatiently now that the attention was no longer focused on him._

 _"He looks to be quite the handful," he chuckled, "He's from the Hyuga Clan, isn't he?"_

 _Readjusting Neji so that his head was resting on Kana's shoulder, as opposed to laying across her lap with his head in her elbow, she nodded, "His name is Neji. He's Lord Hiashi's nephew."_

 _With a nod to show his understanding, Itachi's eyes watched the child as he clumsily grabbed a chunk of hair to cover his face in an attempt at hiding, "My mother is pregnant with my little brother," he said with a tender fondness to his voice, "Do you enjoy taking care of him?"_

 _Oh, that would explain why he was so eager to learn about Neji… Kana felt bad that she had been so harsh with him at first. "He's my precious person," she admitted while subconsciously placing a protective hand over his back. There was a light dampness to his shirt that told her that he was beginning to sweat, so Kana carefully focused her chakra to create a small awning to protect them from the sun. The baby cooed into her ear at the instant relief.  
_

 _Itachi eyed the makeshift cover, "You really **can** shape your chakra into whatever you want, can't you?"_

 _"Some of the elders say that it's because our clan is the nearest to the Otsutsuki Clan," she shrugged, "I don't know how true that is. The Hyugas have the Byakugan, the Uchiha have the Sharingan, and we just have the chakra…" Kana turned to face him, "Can you use the Sharingan yet?"_

 _Pearly black eyes transformed into red, with one discernible tomoe next to his pupil, as a silent answer._

 _"Whoa, that's so cool!" she leaned in to get a closer look at the detail in his eye, accidentally jostling Neji who whined angrily in protest, "So, if you cover your ears, can you really, like, read my lips like they say you can? Can you tell what I'm going to do next just by looking at –" her own pained yelp cut her off when Neji decided he was going to try to rip out a lock of hair with a strength that made Kana genuinely wonder if he wasn't already learning to use chakra._

 _Itachi chuckled behind a delicately raised hand, his smile broadening when she shot him an irritated glare, "Maybe you should wear your hair up around him?" he suggested, "But my Sharingan isn't fully developed, yet, so it doesn't work at its full potential."_

 _The young kunoichi frowned in disappointment; she really **had** been hoping for him to share the details on using its genjutsu properties. Still, Kana took the time to notice how his eyes were like the total opposite of Neji's. While the Hyuga Clan was best known for their pearl-like white eyes, with the slightest hint of a lavender iridescence, Itachi's eyes were like black pearls that were soft and warm despite being so dark. _

_Maybe it was the gentle way he smiled, or the warmth in his eyes. Maybe it was the way that even Neji, who normally shied away from strangers, reached out with his chubby arm to grasp at his shirt. Whatever it was then, Kana realized how gentle of a human being Itachi truly was. She could feel it.  
_

 _The Uchiha were regarded as hot heads but, in that moment, she was absolutely sure there was no one as kind as the boy she had just met._

* * *

A particularly strong breeze knocked Yuki's legs into Kana's arm, snapping her out of her grim musings. If she hadn't deftly reached out to grab her ankles to stabilize her, the child would have tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

 _'I'm sorry, master! I didn't-'_

Her panicked apologies were abruptly cut off by Kana, who swung the child up by her legs in a child-sized arc and caught her bridal-style. Yuki released a surprised squeak and instinctively threw her arms around her neck as to not plummet straight to the ground.

"Let me see your hands," she said quietly while readjusting her hold on Yuki's body so that her arms were secured around her.

Blood and dirt were smeared over the palms of her tiny hands. It was packed under her nails and caked into each subtle groove. It looked as if the cuts on Yuki's hands were from small rocks that only nicked her flesh but, as she continued to walk through the pain, those nicks expanded and grew.

"You did well," Kana created a clone that appeared in a puff of smoke just a brief moment before digging through her hip pouch of medical supplies, "Does it hurt?"

Yuki blinked, swirling eyes bouncing from her bloodied fingers back up to Kana's face, and shook her head slowly, _'It's not so bad. I think my hands are getting stronger.'_

In the month they had spent with the child, the trio had come to learn that she was never taught how to speak verbally. It was why Yuki almost constantly had her dojutsu activated, despite the way it constantly drained her chakra, to communicate with others. She could make noises such as whines and dissatisfied groans, but they had yet to hear her actually use words.

Another one of Orochimaru's failures.

The clone placed some antiseptic and bandages in Yuki's lap so she could clean her injuries as they walked.

 _'This is why you don't heal everything to completion,'_ Kana explained, _'If you let yourself feel pain, and let your body heal itself on its own, you become stronger than you were before. Do you understand?'_

Doubt scuttled through the child's mind but she didn't immediately write off the idea, instead she just continued to clean away the blood-soaked dirt from her hands. Even without the effects of the Ishikigan allowing for a two-way connection, Kana could see that she was somewhat flabbergasted by the sudden change in treatment.

She couldn't really blame her – she had intentionally remained cold and distant towards Yuki as to avoid any unnecessary attachments.

Her eyes locked on Kisame's back and followed the subtle shifts in his body as they walked.

* * *

 _"Shisui, Shisui look!"_

 _Kana frantically waved over their best friend as if the end of the world would be upon him if he didn't appear by their side in point-zero-three-seconds, pointing at the baby boy that was squealing as he wobbled over to his brother on unsteady, chubby legs._

 _The older boy's face lit up and he rushed over to get a better look at Sasuke's enthusiastic steps, "No way, when did he start walking?!"_

 _"Like, four hours ago!" she shrieked, clutching his forearm and bouncing excitedly, "Look! He's running! Shishi, he's **running**!"_

 _Itachi laughed as his baby brother giggled when he had been caught mid-air, fully unaware about how his little baby face almost planted itself into the grass. He slowly helped Sasuke turn around, holding him up by the tiny fists that gripped his hands for support, before gently pushing him back in the direction of Shisui who immediately dropped to a crouch and flung out his arms._

 _Kana almost cried when Sasuke screamed enthusiastically and rushed over to them in a waddle-type run, flinging his hands about as he did. As much as she loved Neji with her heart and soul, this kid was definitely giving him a run for his money in the cute department with those chubby cheeks bunched up into a goofiest smile she had ever seen._

 _Shisui grabbed Sasuke by the hips and turned him upside down as he stood, spinning in a circle as gleeful shrieks filled the air._

 _They had agreed to watch Sasuke so Mikoto and Fugaku could spend the day together, and were playing with Sasuke's dirt truck and robots when he decided it was high time for him to get off his happy diaper-clad butt and walk over to the mail man when he stopped by. Despite being trained to expect the unexpected, both Itachi and Kana were too stunned to even realize what was happening until the thirteen month-old had immediately picked up speed and had begun to run down the road at a frighteningly fast pace that left them both horrified._

 _When Itachi asked if this was normal the only thing the kunoichi could do was shrug helplessly. Neji wasn't able to really walk until he was a year and a half old, and didn't run until shortly after his second birthday; Lady Hinata had yet to take her first steps and Kana paid no mind to the Shimi children._

 _He truly was his brother's brother._

 _"Are you guys hungry?" she asked once Shisui was done blowing raspberries into Sasuke's belly, "I was thinking about getting started on lunch."_

 _Almost in perfect sync, all three Uchiha boys snapped their heads around as their faces lit up like the prospect of food was a trigger. Kana snorted and turned towards the house while waving at them to follow, "Go wash up – Sasuke will most likely need a bath after rolling around in the dirt all day."_

 _It took both shinobi nearly twenty minutes to properly clean off the baby, who was more interested in screaming and splashing water everywhere, and another fifteen minutes to get themselves changed into dry clothes. As luck would have it, they were both about the same size so Shisui didn't need to make a quick run home before settling down at the table._

 _Thankfully Itachi didn't need to wrestle with Sasuke to get him into his high chair, as he was basically jumping out of his arms thanks to being conditioned to know that the high chair meant food. Leaving him with his brother to play peek-a-boo, Shisui lithely maneuvered around the kitchen to peer over her shoulder._

 _"My nose says miso, my eyes say swamp water," he murmured in a voice of faux-disgust, "I thought you said you were making food?"_

 _He only narrowly missed getting a fractured rib from the elbow Kana had aimed directly for his body, laughing as he danced over to stand on her other side and pick at the tofu, "Oh,_ _ **goody**_ _! Look, Itachi! She's made **animals** to live in the **swamp** she created!"_

 _Plastering the most pleasant smile she could muster, Kana craned her neck to look over at the younger boy, "Gee, I don't think Shishi's hungry so I guess that means more for us," she sang with poison dripping from each word._

 _Itachi chuckled softly, then laughed harder when his brother grabbed his hands to keep him from hiding again, "Sasuke won't eat tofu unless it's cut into animal shapes. I have no idea why, but if you're as hungry as you said you were then I'd suggest you stop picking on little girls."_

 _The kitchen was filled with Shisui's laughter as Kana's jaw all but dropped straight to the floor. Of course he'd side with him! Traitor!_

 _She hid her grin with a pout and very, very, carefully released a stream of chakra that wrapped around the leg of Sasuke's chair and slowly dragged it towards where she would be sitting. "Fine," she said defiantly, "If you two are going to be mean then I'll just let Sasuke eat your share and feed the rest to my cats."_

 _Shisui frowned with a serious expression, "I'm pretty sure feeding ninneko swamp water violates your contract -"_

 _"You know very well that it's potato onion miso soup," Kana swatted him on the side of the head, "Now sit down and shut up before I make you clean the dishes, you dope."_

 _He flashed that winning lopsided grin that earned him the hearts of his female classmates and did was he was told, pulling out a chair and dropping into it with as much flourish as one could manage in his situation._

 _Itachi covered his mouth to hide it, but she knew that he was laughing as he watched his two best friends banter. When he realized he had been caught snickering to himself, he smiled warmly and stood up to help set the table._

* * *

Two years had passed since she left Konoha, and things seemed to be even more of a mess than Kana could have ever imagined. The thought of losing Kisame scraped away more of her heart – he was a loyal, caring friend even if he didn't want to admit it. He truly was a marvel of a human being; it was a shame that Yuki would never get to know either of them.

Would they be separated after Itachi's death?

She sighed and averted her eyes when he finally felt her gaze boring into him as he began to rewrap Samehada for the third time that night, each time muttering something about the cloth not being tight enough.

Probably.

Kana's official teammates were the Zetsu brothers – _things_ , whatever the hell they _were_ – and the organization was too recognized to continue moving in the shadows anymore; they would be better off discarding their robes and working solo assignments as opposed to working in pairs.

Become Itachi's doctor and keep him alive for as long as possible – that had been the plan. The plan had been so, so simple.

She listened to the soft sounds of his gentle breathing from the futon he was wrapped in.

When did things become so complex?

Kana looked back down at the child's face, which was unmasked for her training exercise. Her hair was a light silver that bounced with every step that she took, swishing to and fro in a silky, knotted mess that poured out from what the braid it had been diligently woven into each morning. It seemed that the child didn't even understand the concept of despair, despite somehow managing to awaken her full kekkei tota at such a young age, and was in a constant state of contentment. Yuki's hair rarely shifted from the color of a silver coin, whereas Kana's own had been black for nearly three years straight.

The part of her that wasn't insisting that the child was just an apprentice, a child that would be turned into a weapon to further advance her own goals, felt the need to preserve that hair color. Kana didn't want to see it become dark, muddled by the darkness that encompassed humanity.

Reaching out to run her fingers through the locks that now fell loose around Yuki's shoulders, who turned the page of the text in her lap as a part of her nighttime ritual, she closed her eyes and let the smooth follicles slip along her tattooed hand.

They would create a world where the hair of a Kana never needed to grow dark.

* * *

 _It was so cold._

 _Mud caked their Anbu boots and mixed into the blood that had splattered across their cloaks, which had long since been soaked by the heavy sleet that came down on them in icy sheets. There were bodies flung about all around them, some draped across one another and others lying face-down in the frozen ground._

 _"I… I can't do this anymore," a familiar voice whispered._

 _Kana somehow found the ability to turn her body to face the man behind her._

 _Itachi's face was a similar color to the grey slush that rained over them, lips blue, teeth chattering and eyes gazing at the bloody vision the field presented with an expression that could only be read as horror._

 _"I never wanted to hurt anyone," he breathed, "I don't want to kill anymore."_

 _Using what little energy and willpower she could muster Kana staggered over to where he was standing. Her fingers, blue and trembling from the Land of Iron's hostile weather, reached out to touch the Uchiha, to bring him some sort of comfort, but froze halfway through when she realized how bloodied they were._

 _She couldn't touch him like this. She couldn't cover him in the evidence of her clan's savage fighting style. She couldn't taint an otherwise pure creature.  
_

 _After withdrawing her hand Kana smeared the numb tips of her discolored fingers over what unstained parts of her cloak she could find. When they were as clean as she could manage she reached out to wipe away the blood on his cheek with one hand while the other pulled him by the shoulder so that she could embrace his trembling body._

 _"I can't, Kana… I **can't** – I don't want to be a murderer."_

 _The kunoichi felt him bury his face into her neck with a muffled sob, and she tightened her hold._

 _Itachi's breath was warm against her skin even through the layers of their winter uniforms, and her heart broke when she felt his puffs of breath grow ragged as his body heaved in time with the sounds of his weeping. Itachi's arms circled her waist to hold her in a crushing hug, and she knew that someone as kind as he was should never be forced to kill people._ _He was always so serene and loving... People like him shouldn't be shinobi._

 _By contrast, this was what Kana lived for; her clan had exclusively bred and raised her to fight and murder._

 _Itachi was the beauty, she was the beast._

 _"Okay… It's okay," she whispered, "I'll do it… I'll do it for you." It was becoming increasingly more difficult to speak now that the adrenaline was wearing off and their bodies no longer had their hearts pumping a rush of blood through their veins, but Kana forced herself to concentrate through the chattering of her teeth, "I can do the killing. Just tell me what to do."_

 _She kissed the shoulder of her best friend in an attempt at soothing the ache and guilt in his heart as he bawled. Kana would make it better. She'd take care of him. All Itachi needed to do was be the brains of the operation and come up with the plans he was so good at creating – she could execute the enemy shinobi herself._

 _"I'll make it better… I-I'll take care of you."_

 _Itachi's quiet "Thank you" could only barely be heard over the clap of thunder._

* * *

It was surreal to watch someone you know die; it was a feeling that she thought she would never become used to when she was younger. However, as Kana's eyes gazed down at the figure lying at her feet, she found herself completely unfeeling.

The rain had washed away most of the blood and dirt that insisted on clinging to his porcelain skin even after the last of the Amaterasu flames had begun to burn out. It had also sped up the process of cooling his body, as well – the result was Itachi's skin turning to an unnatural grey hue despite having only been dead for fifteen, twenty minutes.

Sweet, beautiful, gentle Itachi.

He had always been so prim and proper, the pillar of serenity in nearly every scenario he found himself in. It was a characteristic that paired ever so beautifully with the fact that he was an untouchable being – untouchable because Kana never allowed anyone to come near him. Positioning herself between him and others, shielding him from danger and taking hits on his behalf no matter how brutal the attack aimed for him could be, she made sure that the precious man was never injured. Never scarred.

That was, until today.

She reached down to brush the backs of her fingers across his cheek, feeling the tips of his unnaturally silk long lashes kiss her skin as she did so. It was like he never had any warmth in his body to begin with. He was so cold and hard.

Dead.

"Child, stop looking away," Kana's voice was flat and alien-sounding in her ears as she ordered Yuki to take in the sight of Itachi's corpse, "This is what it means to be a shinobi," she gestured towards the battered, bloody remains of her childhood friend, "It means watching your loved ones die. It means you bear the weight of humanity's sins on your shoulder as you grit your teeth through the pain. And, when it's finally time for you to die, it's not because of a lack of skill, but the overbearing weight of agony that finally comes down to crush you. _This_ is what being a shinobi is."

With a step forward towards the bizarre sight, her frown deepened, _'But… Why? Master, why does it have to be this way?'_

Kana reached out with one hand so it could rest on top of the young girl's black rain-soaked head, "It doesn't. Itachi wanted _nothing_ more than to change this world so it _doesn't_ have to be like this – _that_ is what our purpose is. We will change the world so that this kind of pain, brother killing brother, friends watching friends fall, no longer exists," she tugged the girl's head up so that she was forced to meet her eyes, "Do you understand now why I must push you?"

There was a moment where Yuki mulled over the lecture she had just been given, before looking down at her bandaged hands and back up at Kana, _'Because, like my fingers, the pain will make me stronger. If I'm strong… We stop others from feeling pain.'_

Kana nodded silently, the cloth mask that was sodden and cold against her skin shifting slightly as she did so. The chakra around them shifted as Obito stepped forward so that he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the kunoichi.

"The Hidden Leaf has dispatched two retrieval squads that will be here soon," he said quietly, "Not only that but, while you stabilized him, Sasuke will need you to tend to what remains of his wounds. If you're ready, I will take you to our base of operations."

As manipulative and dark as she knew Obito was, she couldn't help but admit that there was an inkling of empathy in his voice. Kana reminded herself that this was the same Obito Uchiha that had expressed interest in Rin when they were children; he was probably reminded of his loss from when she was killed by Kakashi's Chidori.

With one final wistful look, the kunoichi turned away from the morbidly ethereal sight of Itachi's corpse and felt the last of the cracked remains of her heart wash away in the rain with the final remains of his blood.


	21. Chapter 21

Kana imagined that, when Itachi died, she would be an emotional wreck. She had assumed that she would be curled up in bed, nearly drowning in the tears that would fill her pillow until it was sodden heavy in weight. She figured that she would spend weeks wallowing in her grief, crying until she choked on her own saliva, just like when he left the village all those years ago.

Silver-white eyes glowed dimly in her reflection, just bright enough to symbolize that Kana's chakra network was active.

Though, in reality, it most likely had something to do with the fact that Kana didn't feel _anything_. There wasn't the sensation of numbness, or the feeling of an aching hole in her chest where her heart had been, like books and shinobi dealing with grief had described. Instead, it felt as if… As if a void had opened up in her chest that removed every ounce of emotion until there was nothing but vacuity in its place. Like someone had used a rusted spoon to scoop out all of her insides so that only the shell of her scarred body remained.

Taking care of Itachi's corpse had been a miserable act requested by the man that she knew would soon be leading their dwindling organization. Kana had removed his eyes so that his younger brother could use them in the future, like a present bought long in advance for Christmas. When she buried him, she took the time to carefully braid his hair into elegant pleats that curled over his thin, bony chest. Kana removed his cloak and hitai ate before disrobing him completely so he could be buried in proper funeral attire which had been purchased just hours earlier.

An old bracelet made of plastic beads, decorated with the Shimi and Uchiha clan insignias, adorned his sickly pale wrist as he was placed in his final resting place, a place where no one would ever be able to find.

Kana liked to think that the trinket of their happiest days together would bring him comfort in his eternal solitude.

Kisame was gone. Where he was, she had no idea. She only knew that Obito, in a sense, finally revealed that he wasn't the simple, stupid Tobi that the organization had become familiar with, but the mastermind that had approached him in the dead of night so many years before.

The three white rings of jagged, uneven dashes were all that remained of his presence.

Try as she might, she couldn't blame him for leaving without a goodbye. When everything about their friendship, if you could call it a friendship, revolved around the existence of a singular third party, there wasn't much to maintain when the life of that person was so abruptly snuffed out.

Sasuke slipped in and out of consciousness as the worst of his wounds healed – Obito had made it clear that he wanted the teenager to heal on his own, as opposed to being immediately brought to full health, just in case he struck out at them in his grief. Once he had been patched up and removed from the dangerous edge of death Kana made sure to stay out of his sight, only checking in on him once he was fast asleep. She couldn't face him.

Oh, well. He was gone now, anyways – snatched up by that Uzumaki girl and the rest of the ragtag team that he formed.

She didn't hate him. Itachi had ultimately been killed by a heart attack, a direct result of putting too much strain on the long-since weakened muscle. This was what he had wanted, anyways, and Itachi's wish had always been Kana's command.

Pulling the Akatsuki cloak over her bare shoulders and fastening the snaps made Kana realize that she could hardly feel the sensation of the fabric brushing over her skin; maybe some part of her brain that acknowledged all feeling had just been obliterated in a form of short-circuiting.

The halls of the compound Obito resided in were carved into a small mountain and were dark and cool as she stepped out of the room that had been designated as hers. Yuki, who had been waiting patiently with a medical text the size of her own head, jumped up from the floor to fall into step just as their routine demanded: Get up with the sun to begin studying, follow Kana for training, eat, train more, eat, study while Kana managed an Akatsuki assignment until the sun went down.

Today, however, there would be no lessons.

"You will train on your own today," she said quietly as they turned a corner, "Work on your endurance."

The young girl frowned and radiated disappointment but didn't offer any protest per the strict rules she had learned to live with. Kana knew she would rather spend their morning sparring; it something that she had come to genuinely enjoy as her taijutsu improved and looked forward to their matches. Unfortunately, since raising and training Yuki was something that Kana had to do on her own now that Itachi and Kisame were no longer in the picture, she wasn't able to indulge the child as often as she would like.

"I will be working with Madara for a few days. Go to him if you have something important to ask, but don't bother him," her voice rang in the narrow space of the stairwell, "Use your alone time wisely. You will be tested on your progress once we are finished."

There was a small flash of light at the mention of the Uchiha has Yuki grew uncomfortable, _'He makes me nervous… The monsters, too.'_

This wasn't particularly surprising – Kana could feel the child's anxiety spike whenever she saw one of the Zetsu prowling about the hideout, presumably searching for Obito to relay new intel, and whenever Obito was close enough for his chakra signature to be overwhelming. Yuki could feel the menacing aura he had about him but it was his weird, muddled chakra that left her feeling unsettled.

Kana stopped and abruptly turned on her heel so that she was eye level with the child, "Good. He could kill either of us, and _will_ if he thinks we're no longer useful."

Another bright flash from Yuki's eyes, _'But isn't he on our side?'_

"We're working together to achieve the same goal," she corrected, "But he isn't like the others. He isn't our friend, or our comrade. He's dangerous…" Kana realized how cold her voice had become when she saw goosebumps appear on the exposed flesh of the girl's arms while her small hands fiercely wrung the hem of her shirt anxiously.

She slapped at her wrists and narrowed her eyes, "I told you to get a _handle_ on your emotions instead of letting them bleed all over the place. If I were an enemy I could use that _against_ you – body language can be what gets you _killed_ in a battle. Do you understand? This is why you wear your mask."

Yuki stiffened, _'I'm sorry, master.'_

"It's my fault. I was too distracted to be as strict as I should have," Kana stepped back and gestured towards the door in a silent command, "If Madara and the Zetsu frighten you, use your time here to teach yourself to control your body language."

As the kunoichi began to make her way down the stairs she felt a sharp tug on her cloak. Twisting to look over her shoulder she saw Yuki peering up at her with flickering, uncertain eyes.

Before she could ask what the hell she was doing, Kana heard _, 'Are… Are we..?'_

Oh.

She frowned and reached out with two fingers to poke the child's forehead, "I will take care of you."

There was an empty disappointment in Yuki's thoughts that mixed into her small feeling of relief, but there was also the understanding that the chance of her getting anything more of a response was slim. She allowed her hand to slip away from the Akatsuki cloak, and turned to pass through the entryway that would take her to the large area used for training.

Judging by the way there seemed to be a constant hope for acknowledgement in the back of her mind, Kabuto must have peppered Yuki with attention during her time with the Sound shinobi – if it wasn't him, _someone_ else sure as hell did. Kana almost felt bad for her.

Almost.

Guilt or no guilt, she wondered if maybe she should at least make an attempt to pander to the child's needs. It could prove to be beneficial in the sense that it could boost her morale which, in turn, could increase her reliability as a weapon in the field...

It'd be tough to find the right balance, though. Where did one draw the line between a master-apprentice relationship and a caring one?

Had she the frame of mind, Kana would have scoffed at herself for immediately wishing Kakashi was around to provide advice. It would be a miracle within itself if he didn't attempt to strike her down on sight.

The halls echoed with her footsteps, quiet as they were, as she closed the distance between herself and the small laboratory that was easily as disturbing as the one Danzo had in the Root compound. Dozens upon dozens of eyeballs floating in individual compartments full of preservative fluids made up just one wall of the high-ceiling room. It made Kana feel like she was being watched by Obito's fallen kin, each one judging her as shrewdly as they did Kakashi for wielding the Sharingan.

Tucked away in a corner was an unrecognizable specimen that looked as if it may have once bore resemblance to Black Zetsu, but had long since been warped into something more akin to a black blob with tentacles protruding from all angles. Perpendicular to the black being was a man with white flesh and light purple, almost grey, hair that would probably fall around his shoulders if it didn't float in the same viscous fluid that maintained the molecular structure of Obito's Sharingan collection. His eyes were closed and his body was mostly curled in on itself but Kana could still see the five tomoe tattooed down his spine due to his lack of covering. He was alive in the sense that his soul had yet to depart to the Pure Land, though she could tell that it had been a long time since he had been put into that chamber.

The center of the room was clearly the laboratory's main attraction. There was an assortment of high-grade homogeneous lights hanging from the ceiling that provided ample light for the stone slab that could only be recognized as an operating table, if the small metal carts littered with various medical tools were of any indication. Scalpels, needles in sterile packaging, an IV drip, a number of medications, bandages, electrocardiography and electroencephalography machines decorated the carts that were meticulously placed around the table, as well as a gurney that was directly parallel to it.

To anyone else the sight would have probably been intimidating, especially the sight of the four machines full of different fluids with thick plastic tubes connected to their bases. Kana had no doubt in her mind that this was probably going to be an excruciating experience but was riding on the assumption that Obito wouldn't screw her over, if only for the sake of the success of his own plans. If he wanted her dead then he would have made it so by this point.

"Punctual as ever," a familiar voice called with the _clang_ of a metal door being shut.

Kana's only response was to begin unsnapping the cloak that hung loosely from her frame. She had done a good job at gaining back most of her lost weight, as well as rebuilding some of the muscle that had long since melted away, but Konan's frame was still large enough for the gifted fabric to nearly swallow her body whole.

Having become accustomed to her silence by this point, or the intermittent curt responses that came as needed, Obito made his way over to the center of the laboratory where the operating table was and gestured for her to lie down with flourish.

A part of her wondered if he was going to be the one performing the procedure. As far as Kana knew he didn't have any experience as a doctor but, on the other hand, he was someone that had been presumably crushed to death as a child and had an entire _wall_ full of Sharingan…

Either way, she found herself stepping out of the cloak that pooled at her feet before climbing onto the table with a little hop. The stone was cold and bit at her naked flesh as she positioned herself so that she was lying directly beneath the array of harsh surgical lightheads that burned her sensitive eyes.

"There will be no complications with the use of anesthesia, I presume?" another voice asked whilst tearing open the package containing a peripheral needle, "This will be extremely unpleasant for you, otherwise."

Out of everything that could go wrong, Kana had to admit that a violent reaction to anesthesia wasn't on that had crossed her mind. She shook her head and closed her eyes against the too-bright florescent bulbs, listening to the faint sounds of steel tools clinking against one another as they were jostled when Obito pulled a cart closer to him. There was the brief sting of the needle puncturing the flesh of her inner elbow and, subsequently, one of the purple veins just beneath it.

"I want you to attack the girl," she said quietly as she felt cool conductive gel being dabbed lightly along her forehead and temples, "Don't break anything. I just want to make sure she's been listening."

"Throwing her to the wolf at such a young age," another voice purred while placing electrodes over the gel, "You're _ruthless_."

Kana's eyes snapped open to see Kabuto Yakushi's face come into view, one hand raised as he snapped a fresh pair of latex gloves over his hands.

"What the fuck."

He forced a smile that masked obvious irritation while powering on a monitor, "Why good morning, Kageri," he chirped, "I'm beginning to think you _dislike_ me, as vulgar as you are." Kabuto turned to a nearby aluminum tray with a sigh that she knew was just for show.

Swirling eyes shifted over to Obito, who had finished setting up the IV by this point, to deliver an accusing stare. Even if she had just been wondering about his abilities in the medical field, that didn't mean she wanted Orochimaru's former _lackey_ handling the procedure; he was just as twisted as his old master was.

"Kabuto has years of experience as a doctor, as well as gene splicing," the Uchiha explained nonchalantly, "He wishes to obtain enough trust to form an alliance. This is one way he can do so."

So… Kana was being used as a bargaining chip? Her eyes drifted back to the Sound-nin's face, which looked like he had violently merged with a snake if the scaled texture of his skin and the reptilian eyes were anything to go by. Did he absorb Orochimaru? If he did, he did a pretty rough job at it…

"Tell me, how does one such as yourself maintain such a sickly complexion despite being outdoors so frequently?"

Kana stared intently at the doctor's face as he marked four points on her chest with more conductive gel, "How does an _expert_ in DNA grafting manage to make himself look like a shitty Orochimaru knockoff?"

Kabuto's tone was obviously irritated as he covered the gel points with electrodes, "Must you insist on using such an _unpleasant_ tone with me? I'd appreciate it if you put a little more faith in me – I truly _do_ wish to help you, Kageri."

Had she the frame of mind Kana would have frowned. Was he trying to win points by using her given name? If anything, she should give him credit for trying this long; it wasn't as if Kana had made things any easier for him. Despite the teasing dramatic flair on his part, she was beginning to feel as if his attempts at gaining her trust were genuine as the look of disappointment continued to flash behind his confident demeanor.

"Quit acting as if I'm more than just a test subject for you to play doctor on," she said flatly, letting her eyes close to shield her retinas from the rough lighting, "You have nothing to gain from me."

"Oh, quite the contrary," he purred, "I have much to gain just in research, alone, from you. I've never been so fortunate to have the opportunity to work on such a magnificent specimen. I would gladly endure your crass mouth if it meant I could learn more about two beautifully rare creatures such as yourselves."

Two?

"When we are finished, you will be a most exquisite creature to behold," Obito agreed.

The heart monitor skipped a beep.

 _Yuki_!

Before she could think too deeply into the matter, the anesthesia finally made its way into her system and knocked her out.

* * *

Yuki liked her master.

It had been a couple of months since she had been taken from Kabuto - or more, she wasn't quite sure. All she knew was that it already felt so long since their meeting, and her hair had grown from her shoulders to the bottom of her sternum.

Kabuto and Lord Orochimaru used to only let her outside every now and then to prevent a vitamin deficiency, or when it was her birthday. Most of the time, though, Yuki spent her days in the dimly-lit facility with the other people. Her new master let her outside. She took her through rainy forests and arid mountains and taught her how to swim. The sun hurt her eyes and sometimes burned her skin but it didn't bother her because, for the first time, Yuki was free.

It wasn't easy. More often than not she was falling asleep with her entire body aching with a new bandage. Her days were usually spent training in ninjutsu and taijutsu, or studying until she fell asleep, and Master Kana never smiled or rewarded her for her efforts no matter how hard she worked.

She never did much of anything in terms of conversation, really. Her master never told stories or talked about her interests, though Yuki imagined that she must have really liked Kisame; she used to snuggle with him and it was the only time she didn't look sad. Similarly, she never asked about what foods Yuki liked or asked about her past, and always shrugged her off when she asked about something not directly related to training. She always looked sad around Itachi, though. She was never given the specifics but Yuki knew that he was really sick before he died; he was always throwing up or shivering under blankets when Kana wasn't using medical ninjutsu to fight his disease.

Yuki was sad when he died, even if she didn't get to know him very well. Itachi always nice and shared his dango with her.

There were moments that made the struggle worth it, however. Every now and then Yuki would regain consciousness long enough to feel her master massaging her sore legs or tending to a particularly deep wound, or simply braiding her hair while singing quietly. Yuki always made sure to keep her eyes shut and feign sleep as to not ruin the moment, but savored the rare displays of tenderness as they came.

Moments such as those were what make Yuki know that her master cared, and that was all she needed. It felt more genuine than they way Kabuto always tried to appeal to her without allowing her any fun.

That was why Yuki sat by her master as she slept even as her sprained shoulder throbbed angrily. She knew it had been a test; her master wanted to make sure that she was strong. That was why Madara had dislocated her hip while she was eating her donburi. Yuki wondered if she passed as her eyes carefully watched her master's sleeping face.

Whatever happened the day she went into the bottom level with Madara, it was causing enough changes that the child found herself feeling genuinely fearful for her life. Her hair was no longer black, but a pale lavender that was closer to white than any other color on the spectrum, as well as her eyebrows and lashes. And, even though Yuki had carefully healed all of the incisions and abrasions caused by whatever multitude of surgeries she had apparently gone under, her master slept fitfully and groaned as if she were in extreme pain.

Every couple of hours someone would come in with a clipboard to look at the different machines and poke at her body before writing things down. It was usually Kabuto more often than Madara, who only stopped in maybe twice a day.

Seeing her former instructor had been a large surprise, to say the least. However, it wasn't as much of a surprise as when Yuki caught a glimpse of her master's eyes when they were pried open for inspection.

They weren't glowing anymore like they used to, when they nearly identical to her own in every way. Instead they seemed to alternate between different hues, red, purple and black, but never white and, when she had snuck a peek when no one was around, there was a strange ring-like pattern with same tomoe that Yuki had seen in Itachi's eyes when he used his Sharingan.

The young girl knew that her master wore goggles near-constantly to hide her eyes, so it was possible that this wasn't a new occurrence, but it still left her feeling worried.

When she asked Kabuto, he only gave her one of his knowing smiles that used to make her chest feel warm, but now only made her realize that it was more of a subtle sneer. Madara always wore that strange one-eyed mask so she couldn't see his facial expression, though he simply told her to be patient and wait for Kageri to wake up.

Yuki didn't know who Kageri was. Was that her master's name? Was there someone else? Why was Kabuto there? What was happening?

There were so many questions; she hoped her master would answer them when she woke up.

* * *

 _Beep._

There was some sort of whooshing sound.

 _Beep._

Wind was rushing against her face.

 _Beep._

No… Not wind. Any shinobi that had spent time in the hospital knew the distinctive smell and flavor of oxygen.

 _Beep._

 _'My chest hurts…'_

 _Beep._

Kana tried to lift her hand but it felt like her entire body was made of lead. The most she could manage was twitch her hand, but she could still feel the bite of something cold press against her skin, as well as the smooth material of something draped over her body.

 _Beep, beep._

Even in her dazed state, she knew that she was still in the cold laboratory that was cut out of stone. Someone had covered her with a sheet.

 _Beep, beep, beep._

Pain.

 _Beep, beep, beep, beep._

It hurt.

 _Beep, beep, beep, beep._

Everything hurt.

 _Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep._

It hurt. It hurt. Ithurt. Ithurtithurtithurt.

 _Beebeebeebeebeebebeebeebeep._

"… Woke… Anesthesia… Fight…"

 _Beebeebeebeebeebeebeebeebeebeebeep_.

"Heart can't… Put…"

There were bodies around her. Kana knew their voices. She didn't care. Her body felt as if it was being shredded to pieces and lit on fire. Years ago, she didn't think it was possible, but this was exponentially worse than the pain of the curse mark during its manifesting period.

Her mind went foggy, and Kana fell back into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

 **Note** : Imma be dicking around with some canon for a bit. It's not going to be sacrilegious (People who die, still die, and vice versa) but I needed to make the whole Kabuto-wants-to-be-frans-with-Madara thing happen a little faster than canon allowed. I want her to get back to the Leaf soon and that just wasn't going to happen if I waited for Obito's big reveal of the White Zetsu army and Kabuto's Impure World nonsense.

I also have been getting a lot of questions from people who figured out the alien thing. No, Kana isn't gonna have rainbow eyes. This is something I had planned and (mostly) written ages ago when I started to think about exploiting Kishimoto's insistence on providing next to no information on the aliens and their inherent abilities.


	22. Chapter 22

While the constant stream of fluid being pumped into her body was keeping her from being entirely dehydrated, Kana was fucking _thirsty_ when her eyes finally fluttered open after a few minutes of struggling with collecting her bearings.

She turned her neck, sore and stiff from lying still for so long, to see that Yuki was seated next to her with a scroll draped over her thighs. Thin brows knitted together in confusion at the sight – the child looked absolutely normal, with no visible injuries other than a pale yellow bruise on her jaw that told her that Obito had made good on her request. What had Kabuto meant when he referred to another test subject?

A question for another time, Kana decided as she opened her mouth to hoarsely ask her student for some water. As luck would have it, Yuki already had a canteen resting by her feet and wasted no time in unscrewing the cap to hold it to her master's lips. The position she was in made for an awkward experience but cool water was sinfully delicious when one was particularly thirsty, so Kana paid no heed to the thin trickle of water that dribbled down her chin and neck.

 _'_ _Master, are you alright?'_

There was something almost comforting about the way the child's voice was laced with an undercurrent of fear, though the comfort was quickly lost when Kana told herself it was most likely because she was worried about her own wellbeing. Gods forbid she died in the surgery and Yuki was left in the care of Obito, or Kabuto.

The corner of Kana's eyes twitched at the subtle irritation she had just begun to take note of. She experimentally rolled her ankles and wrists before slowly pushing herself up so that her body was propped up on her elbows. So far there didn't seem to be any pain other than the mild scratchiness of her eyes, which really just felt more dry than anything, like when there was too much pollen in the air, but there was a noticeable stiffness in Kana's joints and muscles as she moved. Her entire body just felt… _Strange_ … But, for the most part, it seemed as if Kana was generally uninjured.

"Just a little stiff," she whispered hoarsely, her throat still getting used to consciousness, "How long has it been?"

Yuki's small hands reached out to help her into a sitting position _, 'Four days…'_

There was a hesitance in the way she spoke that made Kana sigh and rub at her tired face. She wasn't particularly _warm_ towards the child but did she really need to hold her tongue like this? It wasn't as if she was _beating_ Yuki, or anything.

"You don't need permission to speak, kid," she mumbled into her tattooed palms.

The way Yuki squirmed uncomfortably in the chair that had been drawn up to the operation table was beginning to really make Kana uncomfortable. Her shoulders were rigid and the way she stared down at the scroll still open in her lap told her that something was genuinely bothering her student, which was leading Kana to believe that something had happened to her in the last few days.

Actually… Maybe she wanted to return to Kabuto? The idea wasn't totally unfounded – Yuki was definitely starved for affection, which was probably provided by her former master.

Before Kana could wet her lips to start telling her that it was okay, the child was circling her arms around her bicep and rising from her chair so that she could press her soft cheek against the kunoichi's shoulder.

 _'_ _I thought you were dying,'_ Yuki admitted, _'I don't want you to die.'_

Huh.

Kana blinked down at her student for a long moment as silence filled the air. She wasn't entirely sure why she was so surprised that Yuki was genuinely worried about her, because it was obvious that it wasn't an entirely selfish concern, but Kana had no idea how to respond to the child that was tightly hugging her bicep. When the silence wore on for longer than she was comfortable with, her arm slipped out of Yuki's hold and poked her forehead.

"I _told_ you that I'm going to take care of you," she said flatly while her fingers pried at the electrodes glued to her skin. The machines began to wail in protest so Kana whacked the power buttons until they shut up.

Yuki seemed a little more relaxed at her response but there was clearly something nibbling at her mind while her master pulled the various needles out of her veins. In a moment of exasperation Kana gathered her chakra behind her eyes to activate her Ishikigan so she could just pull information out of Yuki's mind.

It never came.

Kana frowned and gathered more chakra behind her eyes to activate her dojutsu, to no avail. She scanned the labels of what had been being funneled into her body through IVs – they were just antibiotics, pain relievers and saline; none of these drugs had chakra inhibiting qualities.

That was when Kana noticed that the soft glow that she was accustomed to seeing on everything she laid her eyes on was completely absent.

"Yuki…" she narrowed her sore eyes while twisting her body around so that her legs dangled off the edge of the table, "I need a mirror."

Glowing eyes widened, and Yuki began to look about the room frantically for something reflective enough to be considered a mirror. It seemed that, although there were plenty of sterile aluminum surfaces lined up along the wall, the majority of the metal in the laboratory was brushed or too small to be what Kana needed. After a few moments of rifling through carts and trays, she looked back with a dejected expression and exuded apologetic thoughts.

Once Kana dropped down to the stone floor, ignoring the way the cold bit at the bottoms of her feet, she reached out to the child that padded over towards her and cupped her chin.

"Show me what you see," she commanded in a tone that was full of misplaced coolness. Yuki bit her lip and nodded slowly, eyes wide and anxious. Seriously, what the hell did Kana do to instill this kind of nervousness?

The kunoichi had no time to put more energy into that line of thought once Yuki's Ishikigan projected her own vision into her teacher's mind. It was a little clumsy but Kana could work through the two-way link to stabilize her thoughts and keep the image from flickering in and out of focus.

Blood froze in her veins, and her heart with it.

Yuki felt the storm brewing in Kana's mind and bit her lip harder, ' _Master...'_

A familiar mental wall was thrown up as she pulled the thin sheet off of the table to wrap it around her body. Why she had trusted Obito Uchiha, a man that was _clearly_ conniving and manipulative, was beyond her but Kana knew that she should've known better.

It didn't stop the icy anger that felt like all of the blood in her body had been drained away. It didn't stop her vision from turning red as she stormed out of the laboratory. It didn't stop the enraged sound that tore up from her chest when she grabbed Kabuto by his scaly throat and slammed him through the wall of the hallway.

"What the _hell_ did you do," Kana hissed into his ear once the dust cleared.

He opened his mouth to joke, but his chuckle was cut short by the tightening of Kana's fingers around his throat, "Look, I only did what Madara requested -"

She grabbed his wrist with the hand not threatening to crush his windpipe, twisting it back so that a sickening _crack_ followed, "Tell - me - what- you - _did_."

Kabuto grimaced and hissed at what was probably intense pain from the small bones in his joint breaking in succession, his smug expression now melting into an anguished scowl. Before he could answer, however, a familiar deep voice resonated through the room they were in.

"Release him, Kageri," Obito stepped over to where the kunoichi was pinning him to the ground, "It isn't Kabuto which whom you are angry with."

Kana pounced away from the doctor to land a spinning kick on Obito's pelvis, not too unlike her former teacher's Leaf Whirlwind. His expert use of the Izanagi meant that her leg passed through his body with ease.

"You _lied_ to me," she planted her hands on the floor and twisted around so her other leg followed through on the kick, this time connecting with his left hip and sending him stumbling back, "I want answers. _Now_."

Obito rubbed at his injured hip with a sigh, "I see you're only docile when in mourning..."

The irritation began to gain intensity by this point, and Kana pressed the heels of her palms into her mismatched eyes, groaning softly when her vision seemed to flicker between the Kurogan's vision and what she imagined Limbo was like. No matter how much medical ninjutsu she applied to her eyes the pain never seemed to subside.

"Child, tend to Kabuto's injuries," Obito commanded.

When Yuki didn't budge from where she was kneeling next to Kana's side, he reached down to help her to her feet and fished into one of his pants pocket to produce a small vial. Cool liquid filled her eyes to the brim with a soothing sensation that brought instantaneous relief to the scratchy irritation. Kana's lashes fluttered as she blinked away the excess moisture and noticed that it seemed to help with her flickering vision, as well.

She glared at the Uchiha and reached down to scoop Yuki up in her arms, holding the child's small body protectively against her own. Kabuto could eat shit and die for all she cared - Kana wanted to know what the fuck happened when she was lying on that operating table.

Sensing the anger that sent her chakra network into a frenzy, Obito folded his arms and carefully leaned against the wall with yet another sigh.

He did that a lot.

"I will admit that I deceived you, and I am not proud of that," he admitted, "But I did it so that you could reach your full potential and achieve the true power that I know you can wield to bring this hell of a world to an end."

Kana felt Yuki's arms tighten around her neck but she didn't bury her face fearfully into her neck like a lesser child would; she was getting better at controlling her body language.

So Obito was admitting that he hadn't used his own DNA to help the kunoichi better grasp the Sharingan and, in turn, help her hold a direct blood tie to her childhood friends. That didn't even scratch the surface of her questions, though, so she deepened her scowl to let him know that he better engage in another one of his long-winded monologues, and soon.

"Surely you recognize the Rinnegan, Kageri," he purred, "Don't tell me you've never heard of the Otsutsuki Clan?"

Of course she knew about them. They were the where humanity's ancestry could be traced back to, for all intents and purposes - it was the race that the Sharingan, Byakugan and their advanced forms hailed from, as well as the Shimi's own bloodline traits. The Rinnegan was a much lesser-known dojutsu, though, and it still didn't explain where he had gotten the -

The man in the laboratory...

"I don't understand," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone in the room, "Why use him on me, instead of yourself..?" Wouldn't it make more sense for him to have direct control of that power?

"For the same reason I had Danzo Shimura embed a Sharingan into your eyes, as agreed all those years ago when the Uchiha's coup d'etat came to a violent halt - because I knew that you could handle the change." Obito scratched at his cheek, slipping a gloved finger beneath his mask as he spoke, "The Shimi Clan was always regarded as being the closest to the Otsutsuki biologically, with the Kaguya Clan of the Land of Water a distant second."

Kabuto, having healed the bruising around his throat and repaired the damage to his windpipe, rose to a standing position with the same smug expression he seemed to frequently wear. "Had you graced us with your presence by accepting Lord Orochimaru's generousity, you would have met one of the Kaguyas' most prized possessions: Kimimaro," he readjusted his glasses as he spoke warmly, "He, like yourself, had white hair and green eyes, and wielded a most marvelous kekkei genkai. I feel you would have made fast friends with him."

The Uchiha nodded in lukewarm agreement but it was Kabuto who flashed a knowing smile and continued with, "While Madara is an _exceptionally_ powerful shinobi, he doesn't have the genetic makeup required to bond with a member of the Otsutsuki. They are not normal humans, like you and I, but an extraterrestrial species. Any attempt at bonding them with an average person would result in nothing but a corpse to dispose of, and wasted effort."

Which was why Obito needed a Kana.

Ignoring him, she kept her eyes on the man to her left, "You mean... You _gave_ Danzo the Sharingan?"

" _Surely_ you don't believe that he would have been able to acquire that arm, as well as his grotesque replacements, all on his _own_?" The Uchiha almost sounded flabbergasted by the thought, "Danzo's collection of Sharingan were... A token of my gratitude for his complacency."

None of this made any sense in Kana's mind. Danzo Shimura was a shrewd, ruthless man that did dastardly things for the sake of the village, and his own ass, but that was exactly it - he always did what he could to _protect_ the Hidden Leaf. Why would he trust a man that went by the name Madara Uchiha - even if Danzo knew that he was a fake that merely adopted the title, he was pretending to be a man that _attacked_ Konoha with the Nine-Tailed Fox before the attack sixteen years ago.

"I would keep Danzo's secrets and, in return, he would hand you over to me once you fully awakened your kekkei tota. The Sharingan being spliced into your eyes was no more than a test of your body's makeup, to see if the legends of the Shimi clan's biology was as true as the village believed." Obito spoke as if this were the most casual scenario one could find themselves in; he acted as if this were no different than talking about one's favorite cookie recipe.

Kana nodded to herself, a lock of pale, almost white, purple hair falling over her shoulder, "And because my body didn't reject the Mangekyo, you thought it was enough proof."

Her eyes drifted to rest on the wall, staring blankly as her mind worked to process the new information. The icy rage from before had settled into nothing more than a hollow numbness; it was a welcomed feeling by that point.

"Don't you see, Kageri, you have _transcended_ -"

"I've become a jumble of _corpses_ ," she interrupted in a voice that sounded as empty as she felt, "But... Yeah. Sure."

Obito clicked his teeth disapprovingly and took a breath as if he was about to say something but, without another word, Kana just slowly turned around and navigated the rubble that littered the floor, stepping through the hole in the wall with Yuki still in her arms.

Worry obviously niggled at the back of the child's mind as they moved through the halls, but Kana simply didn't have the energy to figure out what was bothering her now that they no longer had a continuous psychic link.

When they made it to her assigned room Kana set the girl down on the edge of the bed and dropped the sheet that was still haphazardly wrapped around her body. She picked her clothes up from the floor, sliding the slate blue Akatsuki ring over the appropriate finger, before falling to the bed with a heavy sigh.

"Are you alright?" Kana asked in a quiet voice once she had a moment to catch her breath.

Yuki nodded silently, eyes wide and shimmering and her tiny hands clenched into fists in her lap.

"Do I scare you?"

The child shook her head with such fervor that Kana thought she could almost hear her teeth rattling around in her skull.

With a subtle nod of acknowledgement she buried her face in her hands. Living with Orochimaru's cronies probably meant that she had seen some crazy shit, so her change in appearance probably wasn't too startling in comparison to snake-people and shinobi with physical augmentations. When you have that kind of comparison then purple hair and mismatched Rinnegans wasn't that surprising.

"Do you understand what they were talking about?"

Yuki hummed twice in rapid succession for "No," and the kunoichi found herself groaning softly into her tattooed palms. It wasn't so much a groan of irritation as much as it was one of resignation, having become accustomed to hearing about Orochimaru's shortcomings as an instructor. What was the point of teaching someone how to use their bloodline traits if you weren't going to discuss the culture and history behind it? Being well-read was an important part to being a shinobi.

"Alright, so about a thousand or so years ago there was this clan called the Otsutsukis. They were supposedly beings that walked through dimensions of reality for certain worlds that had certain traits that would extend their lives. Imagine them as the parents of humanity." Kana watched the child's face carefully to make sure that what she was saying was sinking in as she spoke, "Unlike current clans, who all have techniques and special abilities that are shared among one another, most of them had their own different abilities. Some could mold their chakra into physical shapes and weapons, some could use chakra to read minds, some could absorb chakra, some could use their own bones as weapons, and so on."

Swirling eyes flashed as Yuki's brow furrowed in concentration. She nodded her head and hummed every now and them to show that she was actively listening.

"It's known that almost every single one wielded a dojutsu, though. Kaguya Otsutsuki, the head of the clan, is the Otsutsuki that gave birth to the known dojutsu. She wielded the Byakugan, which most Otsutsuki members inherited, as well as the Rinne Sharingan," Kana tapped the skin just below her right eye, "It's the parent to the Sharingan and Rinnegan. It's where Itachi's and Pain's eyes come from."

The child frowned in thought and activated her Ishikigan. _'But what about us?'_ she asked somewhat dejectedly, _'Madara said we were closest, so what about **our** eyes?'_

Running a hand through her hair, eyes scanning the room for a hair tie, Kana sighed and tried to find a way to explain it in a way for a six year old to understand, "Do you remember how Itachi's Sharingan sometimes changed shape?"

Yuki nodded.

"The Sharingan has two advanced forms: the Mangekyo and Eternal Mangekyo. The Byakugan also has an advanced form, which is called the Tenseigan. The Shimi Clan… I don't know why, but I guess we deviated from the path when the Otsutsuki lineage separated and began to evolve on its own. Our Ishikigan harbors the mind-reading and controlling properties of some Otsutsuki members – the Kurogan is almost like a lesser form of the Byakugan that can only see chakra signatures in Limbo until we awaken our Ishikigan. When we have both, it looks like a black and white version of the Tenseigan, and I think that our Otsutsuki lineage just manifested differently while keeping the most of the clan's qualities."

Yuki blinked for several moments in silence while she processed the information, and Kana realized that she was doing a terrible job at explaining this. During his training for the Chunin Exams Neji had grasped the concepts of the Body Blast Technique and the Palm Rotation with ease, but the kunoichi was beginning to realize that this was possibly because it had nothing to do with an ancient race of extraterrestrials that hardly anyone knew a damn thing about.

 _This_ was why she never took up the offer of becoming a jonin-sensei. She'd rather just toss a book at the kid and let her figure shit out on her own - it was what Kana had done, after all.

Kana sighed again and wondered if maybe she should just let Obito handle this, instead; that man was annoyingly eloquent and probably knew more about this than she did.

"Anyways, what they were saying earlier is that, when it comes to chakra and our biological makeup, the Shimi Clan is the most similar to the Otsutsukis, with people like us being just about as similar as humans can get," she continued explaining, hoping that the kid would just magically understand, "The Shimi Clan even believed that we were reincarnations of an Otsutsuki, and their spirits lived in our eyes. So, Kabuto and Madara merged my DNA with an _actual_ Otsutsuki so that they could bridge the gap between our clans." She had no idea why the Rinne Sharingan only manifested in one eye, though, or where the hell they had even gotten an Otsutsuki in the first place... Weren't they supposed to have died out by now?

Yuki's frown deepened and tilted her head to the side, _'You're one of them, now?'_

There was a pause as Kana's mind came to a grinding halt. She was trying to explain all of this, while still processing everything that Obito had said earlier, and hadn't really made it that far. To be perfectly honest all of this just made her feel exhausted and numb, as if her brain was beginning to shut down so it didn't have to deal with everything that was going on.

But… _Did_ this make her one of them?

She looked at herself in the small mirror that was adjacent to the bed they both sat on. Her hair and eyelashes were such a pale shade of wisteria that they were nearly silver in color, and the mismatched Rinnegans in her eyes were almost startlingly different from the glowing white and black that she had become accustomed to. Everything else about her physical appearance had remained the same – there were still tattoos snaking around her hands and extending up her forearms, and her body was the same as before – but was still blatantly apparent that her body had undergone dramatic changes in the few days she had been asleep.

"I'm no one," Kana whispered after a few long moments of silence. She was nothing more than a remnant of those before her – the shadow of others. A perversion of sacred bloodlines. Suddenly, her given name seemed just that much more fitting, "I'm just Kageri."

She looked back at Yuki, who looked both unsettled and confused by the response that had been given. Kana couldn't blame her.

This whole situation was a mess.

* * *

"Have you been experiencing any issues regarding your body's transition?"

Kana stared intently at the doctor's face as he marked six points on her forehead with a conductive gel, frowning in silence.

He frowned and clicked the cap over the end of the tube before reaching for the electrodes, "You don't intend to make this easy."

Again, she didn't respond and only watched the reflection in his pupils as he began to place the wires over the globs of gel. In reality she knew that he really wasn't to blame for Obito's underhandedness, but she couldn't help but feel as if he should be held accountable for what had happened two weeks back, given that he had been the one to administer the genetic splicing.

The sound of the door opening caused both of them to turn and see a bored-looking Sasuke enter the room, who quickly changed his expression to that of alarm when he saw the doctor sticking the final electrode to Kana's head. "What the hell are you _doing_?!" he asked accusingly.

Kabuto forced a smile that masked obvious irritation as he greeted the teenager, "Why good morning, Sasuke. As you can see, I'm going to be observing Kageri's brain through this EEG monitor so I can analyze her brain waves when she uses her kekkei-"

Alarm turned to anger, "I don't _care_ about that, she's not one of your toys to experiment on! Get that shit off and quit bothering her! And her name's _Kana_!"

The doctor sighed. The pair frequently butted heads now that Sasuke was back in the compound for a few days dealing with whatever business he had, and Kabuto had made his distaste for the Uchiha's attitude known on multiple occasions. "Sometimes I wonder what I could have possibly done to earn this level of distrust from the two of you," he muttered through clenched teeth, "But, believe it or not, I'm genuinely curious to see how Kageri has been handling the changes to her body. Now I assume you didn't come down here for tea…"

Sasuke scowled, "Madara wants you."

Visibly balking at the teenager's continued unpleasant demeanor, Kabuto stepped away from the gurney. "I trust you won't go running off while I'm away?" he asked Kana, who shrugged and made a non committal noise as he rifled through a cabinet.

When he exited the lab, Sasuke turned his frown to her, "Why are you letting him get away with this?!"

Kana shrugged again, swinging her legs in the empty space between the gurney and the cold stone floor. "I felt like becoming a robot today," she joked without any mirth in her voice, knowing that he wasn't actually referring to the wires stuck to her face. As his scowl deepened, she sighed and held a hand out to signal for the boy to come over to her.

"Look, Sasuke," she said softly, trying to force warmth into her voice, "We're finishing Itachi's work. We're going to end the wars, and the violence – Madara's helping me do more for the world than my work in the Leaf ever did. I don't trust him but, if changing me helps, I'm willing to do it." Kana's thumb brushed along the back of his scared knuckles and she gave him a small, sad smile, "Itachi didn't bring me along as a bodyguard because I'm helpless, you know."

Sasuke sucked his teeth but gave an understanding nod, a noticeable pain gathering in his eyes at the mention of his brother, "All this time..."

When they had first seen each other the day before, they couldn't do anything other than just stand and stare at once another for several long minutes. There was no heartfelt reunion, no tears or long-winded talks about what they had been doing until then, just... Silence. Painful, empty silence. Eventually Kana reached out to take him by the back of the head, holding it against her shoulder for a moment to place a gentle kiss on his cheek like when he was a child. They didn't need to exchange any words; that had been enough.

With a soft sigh, the numb feeling began to creep its way back over what fondness she was trying to project into her words, and Kana dropped his hand to place them back in her lap, "I used to hate them, too," she admitted, "For _so_ long..."

"And now?" he asked quietly.

Kana brought her mismatched gaze up to meet his, which was still somewhat bloodshot from the irritation of the Mangekyo, "I just want them dead. Danzo, everyone involved... I want them to pay for their crimes, but..."

There was no room for hate anymore, not when her heart had been buried with her most beloved friend.

Their shared moment was soon cut short, as it was quickly ended by Kabuto's return. Sasuke's scowl returned and he stepped back from the gurney.

"I'll avenge him," he said darkly, one hand on the knob, "Shisui, too, and everyone else."

Kana turned her head away from Sasuke and didn't answer; she kept her eyes on the feet that lazily swung in the air. Truth be told, Kana just wanted him to go home to Konoha and try to start a new life for himself, but knew that something inside of him shattered to where he wouldn't listen to anyone but himself.

The door clicked just as Kabuto unceremoniously dumped the evidence of an injection into a biohazard bin. "It's such a shame that a face as beautiful as yours is wasted on someone that looks so miserable all of the time," he said humorlessly after a long silence. He snapped a fresh pair of latex gloves over his hands before crossing the room to where Kana sat.

Her eyes narrowed, "Don't be a jackass."

Kana wasn't necessarily a vain person, as she was entirely aware of how there were much more important things to worry about, but she knew that her appearance wasn't appealing. Her muscles were developed, the entirety of her body was covered in tattoos and scars, her figure lacked any form of womanly curves, her eyes were two mismatched Rinnegans, her hair was short and her hands were covered in rough callouses. Kana was intimidating, not pretty, and would rather not listen to people try to fuss over trivial bullshit like that.

Still, Kabuto's tone was obviously irritated as he picked up her left arm by the elbow, "Must you insist on being vulgar every waking moment? I'd appreciate it if you put a little more faith in me."

Her eyes stayed glued to the floor, but she slumped her shoulders while the doctor stuck her with a needle. "Is Madara okay?" Kana mumbled, eyeing the biohazard bin.

"If we're pretending as if you actually care, he's fine," Kabuto answered, "Ready?" He reached over for the EEG machine.

* * *

 _ **'What's your current location?'**_

Pain's voice rang so abruptly in her head that the kunoichi visibly flinched and nearly took a fuma shuriken to the leg – she had actually begun to forget about his involvement in the Akatsuki, what with her life being currently focused on training and Obito's plan. Mismatched eyes looked down at the ring on her finger, which was the way that the organization's leader communicated with them, and found herself somewhat annoyed by the interruption of her training.

"I'm in the northern part of the Land of Needles," she murmured, "What do you need?"

 _ **'The organization needs you to infiltrate the Hidden Leaf.'**_

Konoha? Kana frowned, "You're going for the Nine-Tails?"

 _ **'You are to retrieve intel regarding the guard stations and sensor barrier surrounding the village. You will then deliver it to me.'**_

Her frown deepened. She had been entirely intent on retrieving Naruto herself in order to ensure the safety of the Leaf, as she had explained during their last meeting. Not only was she capable of getting in and out of the village without alerting the barrier team because of the Thunder Flying God Technique, but the Nine-Tails was such a moron that it wouldn't have been difficult to put him under her control. Even if she couldn't use the Ishikigan she could still use the Rinne Sharingan's genjutsu properties, or even have Yuki use her own abilities.

If Pain wasn't going to be sending her, then who _was_ going to take him? Kisame? It would make the most sense, what with Samehada's abilities at stealing chakra.

"I understand," she said flatly, throwing up a barrier to avoid a barrage of kunai that threatened to pin her to the wall, then experimentally using the recently-leaned Tendo to push them back, "Shouldn't take more than a week."

Yuki stood up with a confused expression that was becoming more and more familiar as the time they spent together wore on, _'What's happening?'_

Kana picked up her jacket from the floor and slung it over her shoulders, feeling the sheathed blades bounce against her back as she did so, "We're going to take one of the final steps to completing the Eye of the Moon Plan," she pulled her mask up to cover the lower half of her face and indicated that Yuki should put on her own, "Are you ready for your first real mission?"

Nervousness and uncertainty flickered through the child's swirling eyes, but she nodded and slipped her goggles before putting the kunai she had been sharpening into her holster. Kana honestly had half of a mind to leave her in the compound for the sake of her own safety, like she normally did over the last three weeks, and probably would have if she didn't know it was high time for her to put her skills to the test. Fighting Obito had merely been a test of her skills in one-on-one combat, and this mission was going to put a lot more than that into play.

The kunoichi adjusted the straps on her Anbu boots, which had begun to show their wear after years of abuse, and threw her hood up before looking down at Yuki just as she zipped her jacket up. It was an outfit that was somewhat similar to Kana's: a black cropped jacket that had short sleeves and a high neck that covered a black cotton one piece suit that extended to just above her knees. She had outgrown the plain scrubs that Kabuto had dressed her in, so Kana picked Yuki a new outfit when they passed through Takigakure.

There was something somewhat unsettling about the similarities in their appearances but Kana couldn't bring herself to focus too much on it while she threw her Akatsuki cloak over her shoulders and turned away from Obito, who stood off to the side silently, "Looks like Pain wants the Nine-Tails," she explained plainly, not caring to elaborate any further as they left the training room.

A thought occurred to her while they turned a corner, and the kunoichi came to a sudden halt before turning abruptly on her heel to face Yuki, who couldn't stop in time and found herself bumping into Kana's stomach with a surprised grunt. She ignored her panicked expression and dropped down to kneel before the child, grabbing her thigh with one hand and using the other to put Yuki's hand on her shoulder for balance.

"I'm going to start teaching you how to use this on our way," she said while pushing the fabric of Yuki's one piece up high enough to expose her hip. This probably would be easier if she just had the girl strip, but Kana wasn't going to start pulling her clothes off in the middle of the hallway.

Yuki flinched and whimpered when the thin needle of chakra bit into her flesh, fingers flexing on her master's shoulder as she struggled to keep her balance.

"The Flying Thunder God Technique requires a shinobi to develop their own unique seal that responds only to them," Kana explained, "By creating your seal, you can reach out to it with your chakra and manipulate the space-time continuum to teleport to wherever that seal is."

She released the child's leg but didn't stand up, knowing that the pain of having a mark like that was substantial. Kana didn't carve the mark into the girl's skin like she did with Itachi, but had essentially used the same senjutsu technique Orochimaru used on her nearly four years prior. By puncturing Yuki's skin and applying a bit of her own chakra, the specially formulated seal for the technique appeared on her hip in a series of kanji and swirls like a black tattoo.

When Yuki's face no longer was twisted into an expression of great pain, Kana stood up and watched her pull up the short leg of her suit to peer at the mark curiously.

 _'So this means you can teleport to me, like your kunai?'_

"This isn't going to be like training," she explained, motioning for the girl to follow as she began to make her way through the hall, "What we're doing is dangerous. If we get caught, the guards _will_ try to kill us. I need to make sure that I can keep you safe, which means I need to be able to be at your side at any moment. You're no good to me dead."

Whatever inkling of hope in Yuki's head was immediately squashed by Kana's last sentence, and she could feel the child's disappointment before their link was broken.

* * *

 **Note** : Ugh, it's nice to finally explain half of the shit that's been going on. Kana's entire chakra ability was based about Kinshiki's abilities, though his chakra was red instead of black and I took a lot of liberties with what all you can do with it. The Ishikigan thing was based off of Toneri's abilities, and the Kurogan was supposed to be half-Limbo vision half-Byakugan. The Kanas were supposed to be actual reincarnations of Otsutsuki members but I ended up scrapping the idea because I didn't want her to have the Rinnegan right off the bat, and just changed it to a myth within the clan. In hindsight, I feel like that would have been easier to follow as a reader. I'm sorry :c

Also, the way this chapter went was kind of weird. I feel like I rushed through a lot, but I'm insanely sick from working at SXSW and I feel like my inability to concentrate is hurting this.


	23. Chapter 23

"Do you remember the plan?"

Yuki nodded with her lips turned downwards into a grim expression. She wore the goggles that Kana previously wore to hide the glow of her eyes, and her fox mask was pushed over to the side of her head. She had asked what the mask was made out of a few days ago and, when Kana said Anbu masks were made from bone and treated with a special porcelain, the child grimaced and pushed it away from her face with an uneasy expression.

Even after four months it seemed that Yuki's emotions and reactions were just as raw as before, though Kana wasn't entirely sure if she found herself as frustrated as she used to be with it. There was something almost endearing about the way she preserved herself.

The kunoichi pulled a marked kunai out from the holster strapped to her leg and, with chakra focused to her left arm, launched it as hard as she possibly could. The blade cut through the night air and the sensing barrier that surrounded Konoha, towards the high wall that had long since been repaired from the Sand and Sound invasion.

Yuki's hand slid into her own as her master's rose to form the familiar Seal of Confrontation.

"Are you nervous?" Kana asked, eyes locked on the chakra-wrapped kunai that cut a minute hole through the thick stone wall.

The child shook her head, _'You're a good teacher.'_

Her lips twitched upwards in a half-hearted smirk at the confident tone in her voice. Yuki's skills really had grown exponentially over the time they had spent together, fending off Obito and herself enough to get herself to safety even if she couldn't land a hit, but would they be enough for this?

With a burst of chakra their surroundings changed from a dark, shadowy forest, and to the empty training field that was bordered by sparse trees. It was the familiar training ground just a mile or so out from the Hyuga Clan's district that she used to train in with Team Guy.

There was no time for sightseeing, however, and the two quickly dashed across the field and into the safety that the dark forest provided. The warm balmy air that told of spring's departure caused Kana's stray hairs to stick to her forehead where sweat was beginning to bead. Yuki was hot on her heels, moving almost as fast as her instructor as they swiftly ran along the perimeter of the village.

This time they were unable to use one of the members of the Hokage Guard Platoon to get them into Tsunade's office, as Kana had a hunch that the majority of them wouldn't fall for the same trick, so the plan was to use the Gakido to absorb the chakra that kept the fuinjutsu in place. Of course, this meant that, come morning, someone would realize that there had been another break in, which meant that it wouldn't be a particularly stealthy mission. Kana was hoping that the lack of stolen files would put them at ease, though she highly doubted it.

Still, it was a preferable method over using something like the Ningendo; she had no intention of harming anyone while she was here.

"We're coming up on Hokage Rock," she said quietly, "This is where both Anbu headquarters are located, so I need you to keep one eye on the mountain for lookouts."

As they had found out within the first few days of training, having the Rinnegan in both eyes meant that Kana couldn't use either of her family's dojutsu. Both the Kurogan and the Ishikigan had been completely obliterated from her system by the genes spliced from the Otsutsuki man, so she was relying heavily on Yuki to point out any guards. It was an uncomfortable and completely foreign position to be in, to say the least, and Kana had no idea how others could handle this kind of blindness for their entire lives as they came up on the edge of the forest that opened up to a direct line to the shinobi academy facility. It felt as if someone had wrapped a blindfold around her eyes before sending her on a scavenger hunt, or as if she had lost a limb right before a marathon.

 _'Four Anbu are standing guard at the top of the mountain,_ ' Yuki stopped to carefully survey their surroundings, _'There are three guards on each floor of the academy, and there are two outside of the main office on either side.'_

Well, shit. It seemed like the Guard Platoon had learned their lesson from her last break in. Kana threw her arms up and jumped up so she could grab the edge of the academy wall, vaulting herself over its edge and landing in the outdoor training area. There were boards hanging from tree branches, or nailed to trees and poles, with differently colored and sized circles that pregenin used for target practice. Across the small dirt field there were some sparring dummies that were beginning to look a little worse for wear.

If they took the back entrance from there then, in theory, it would be easier to sneak by the guards, who would be focused more on the obvious points of entry that outsiders knew about. Once they got the information regarding the village's military strength and defensive strategies then they could use the entrance to the underground passages to get out of the village.

 _'Master, there are two guards coming up on us.'_

Kana paused so that Yuki could take the lead, knowing full well what to do. The aforementioned guards turned the corner just a minute later and were completely oblivious to the pair standing just a few feet away, thanks to the kid's expert use of her Ishikigan. Like she had done with Raido, Yuki was making it so that they looked anywhere other than the wall they were flattened against.

What was particularly interesting was the outside perspective of a shinobi using the Ishikigan to dominate the mind of someone else. The face of the guards at the door went completely slack after a few moments of staring at Yuki, who maintained the jutsu long enough for Kana to mentally prepare herself for the use of Gakido. It almost looked like the sight of the child was enough to leave the shinobi completely dumbstruck, like they were looking at an ethereal creature, and it was almost comical.

Almost.

Using her right eye to carefully decipher the fuinjutsu's formula, Kana created a small barrier of chakra and placed it just over the reinforced paper seal that kept the door locked. Gakido worked not too dissimilarly than normal chakra absorption, except you needed to needed to force the chakra flow to move in the opposite direction to disperse it; in a sense it was like a reverse Rasengan.

 _'Some of the guards are being replaced,'_ Yuki's voice sounded worried as her master tried to not squirm uncomfortably at the unfamiliar chakra being absorbed from seal.

"Most guard stations stagger out changings," she explained, watching the sealing barrier slowly recede back towards the paper, "Just make sure those two don't break free."

As much as Kana distrusted Obito, which was a lot, she had to admit that she was thankful in his near-omniscience. The fuinjutsu was entirely dispelled in just a couple of minutes thanks to the training he provided when she wasn't running off on errands for Pain, like when she had to go through the difficult-as-hell process of tracking down the Three-Tails' jinchuriki, only to realize that one didn't actually exist. Thankfully the Six-Tails had been sealed without too much effort.

Peeling the seal off of the door to step through, she mentally counted how many Tailed Beasts there were for the organization to acquire. It was just Eight and Nine, right? It seemed like it was just last week when they were struggling to seal the One-Tail; it was almost surreal that they were this close to restoring the Ten-Tails.

Kana smiled softly to herself at the thought while rifling through the stacks of files and scrolls that filled the bookcase in Tsunade's office. It was an unnaturally calm smile of serenity that, had she the frame of mind, she would have realized was the same one that Itachi wore when he came back from his talk with Sasuke.

It looked like not much had changed in terms of security protocols – all of it was about as Kana remembered, though it had been ramped up here and there with the focus being on the village capitol. Still, she took the time to transcribe the file's contents into a blank scroll that had been tucked into her belt; it didn't hurt to be too prepared.

The sensing barrier formula definitely went under massive changes, though, which wasn't entirely surprising. Tsunade had probably called for it after her last infiltration – it was actually able to specify who was entering and leaving the village as long as the shinobi had passed through the sensing barrier in the past. Kana had to admit that she was impressed by how ameliorated the formula had become.

After maybe ten minutes of diligently transcribing everything onto a blank scroll, paying attention to every minute detail, she straightened herself from where she had been bending over the Hokage's desk and rolled the thin paper back up before applying a basic seal over the crease and stuffing it back into her belt.

There was a strong sense of déjà vu as Kana tucked the barrier team's file, and defensive protocols, back into the bookshelf. The last time she found herself walking through the double doors that clicked shut behind her, Raido had been walking by her side as a sort of escort. It was the man that haunted her dreams for months sealing the door, as opposed to Kana clumsily working her way through the seal that she could only make because of the Rinne Sharingan and her chakra absorption abilities, having stolen just enough from one of the guards to replace the seal as to not attract attention.

Her feet felt heavy when Yuki finished wiping their memories and they turned to leave. It was hypocritical, it really was, but Kana couldn't shake the feeling that she was contributing to potential damage to Konohagakure. There wasn't this feeling in the past – she had never cared. But… This was her home. This was where her most precious people lived peacefully with smiles on their faces.

The reason she offered up her services back at the Akatsuki base was because she would be able to get the Nine Tails in and out of the village without a hitch; no one had to get hurt.

Mismatched eyes looked down at the twin scrolls that were neatly tucked into her belt next to the scrolls for stronger techniques and the marked weapons. If she delivered it to Pain as it was, would he cause harm to the people here? Deidara and Sasori almost destroyed the entirety of Suna, from what she had been told, and Kisame would instigate as many fights as he could if it meant being able to achieve the thrill he felt in battle. The former team was dead, which only left Kisame, Madara, Konan and Pain...

Kana blinked at the realization of just how small their numbers had dwindled to. The organization had been sliced clean in half in just the last year or so.

She looked down at Yuki, who was diligently scanning their surroundings as they made their way down to the bowels of the academy towards the underground tunnels. Every major shinobi village had their own equivalents to the Niju Shotai, who roamed their nations in search for anyone donning their red clouds. Could she keep her safe anymore? Could Kana ensure this child's wellbeing while consistently putting her in danger?

A train of thought for another time, she decided while guiding Yuki through the last staircase that would take them to the tunnels that snaked beneath the village. There were going to be guards stationed at their expected exit and Kana knew that the child next to her began to feel the effects of using her dojutsu for so long; using the Ishikigan on more than one person was brutal on its own.

Like last time, a part of her wanted to stay longer in the village. Kana wanted nothing more than to visit Izumo's and Kotetsu's graves, apologizing for being associated with the men that ended their lives, or to just check on Neji. The medallion that flickered every now and again told her that he was alive and well but, for the same reason mission reports required visual confirmation of assassinations, being able to see him sleeping in his bed would bring her more ease of mind than playing the guessing game of whether or not he's training or in battle.

A quiet sigh escaped her lips.

* * *

"Lay down in my lap."

Rubbing at her eye for the umpteenth time in the last few hours, Yuki mewled unhappily and wriggled around in the dirt until her head was resting on her master's thigh. Excessive use of her dojutsu was causing some major irritation for the poor kid, and she kept making it worse by incessantly rubbing at them, so Kana fished a vial of drops from her hip pouch and screwed off the top.

They were the same eye drops she made for her own eyes, which continued to give her problems every now and again from the adjustment to the Rinnegan, but they seemed to get the job done with Yuki's problem. Within just a couple of minutes the redness surrounding her glowing irises began to recede and the tension in her brow finally relaxed.

 _'How long are we going to be here?'_

Kana screwed the cap back on the vial and tucked it back in her pouch, bringing her hand back to rub gentle circles into her scalp to ease the throbbing sensation she knew was only beginning to ease. During her training she decided that Yuki was better with hand to hand combat than bukijutsu, so she had begun to teach her how to use a variant of the Gentle Fist style of fighting. The end result was that Yuki had exerted way more chakra than necessary and was feeling miserable.

"Just until you're better," she murmured, "We have to go to the Land of Lightning, and the high altitude could make your headache worse."

With a small smile Yuki slid her eyes shut at the ministrations, ' _I like the mountains there.'_

"We won't be there for sightseeing," Kana frowned, "We need to get intel on the Eight Tails jinchuriki, which isn't going to be easy."

She knew enough about Naruto to where she didn't need to access any files about him, thanks to Kakashi's talks about his students, but Killer B was the Raikage's own brother and the kunoichi had literally no idea what their security was like; this was going to be an exceedingly dangerous assignment where the only way it could be worse would be if the Eight Tails was sealed within the A himself. They didn't have a home field advantage with Sasori, who was able to tell her the ins and outs of their security system, and Kana had only been in Kumogakure a grand total of five times – even then, she only ever set foot inside of the Raikage's office once.

Tattooed fingers smoothed through locks of hair that shifted between shades of silver. Yuki must have been more exhausted than she let on because, in the time it took Kana to worry about their odds in the Hidden Cloud, she had been lulled into a light slumber.

Watching her sleep was a sight Kana rarely saw, as their routine typically required for the child to be up and studying before her master woke up, but when she saw it, it truly drove home just how young Yuki was. There was no guarded look in her eyes, or a tightness around her mouth as she stayed aware of her surroundings. Yuki's mouth hung open enough for a small trail of drool to dribble down her chin and over Kana's thigh, her brow was relaxed, and there was something so… Open about it.

It was strange to actually see her for what she was: a young child.

Was this what it was like for her former teammates?

"You're quite the caretaker."

Kana looked up to see Konan lingering in the doorway much like the time she walked in when Itachi was snoring in his human sushi roll. "A katana is worthless if it isn't properly maintained."

Eyes the color of persimmons rolled behind heavily made up lids at her response, "There are few shinobi who braid the hair on their katana," she said with a knowing lilt to her voice, "Those who do must be exceedingly fond of their weapons."

The kunoichi tried to hide the deepening of her frown while the organization's second in command sauntered into the room with as much grace as one would expect from nothing less than an ethereal creature. Gods, this woman was literally perfect, wasn't she?

Removing her fingers from Yuki's hair, which had been neatly woven into fine pleats, Kana shifted so that Konan had room to sit on the short couch.

"The Akatsuki was formed because of our love for our people, and each other," she said quietly, reaching out to thumb the child's hair, "The red clouds on these robes we wear represent the wars that rained blood upon Amegakure to symbolize that."

"Ma'am, if you're about to tell me it's better than to have loved and lost…"

A smile graced Konan's painted lips and she brought her hand back to rest in her lap, "Tell me, why did you adopt the shinobi life so many years ago?"

For the same reason everyone in her clan did. "It was my duty."

"Is that the only reason you fought?"

Kana furrowed her brow at the child drooling into her lap, "I wanted to protect my teammates, and my precious people..."

Oh.

* * *

Yuki learned very, very quickly.

Pride would swell in Kana's chest had she the moment to take the time to appreciate her student's work as they swiftly moved through the rocky streets of Kumogakure. She required no instructions, sticking to the shadows and applying silencing jutsu to her feet to reduce any noise her tiny body might make. Yuki was able to judge their direction and avoid any Cloud-nin they could while using carefully-concentrated chakra to scale a cliff to the next level.

Yuki tapped the base of the neck of a guard. Kana warped him into her Kamui dimension before his body hit the ground.

Clean. Quiet.

The kunoichi watched her student jump over a railing to crawl around a cliff edge; the guards just four feet away were completely oblivious to her presence. She was by her side with the flit of her wrist, catching the kunai out of the air as she teleported to it.

The Raikage's office was built around a mountain that tapered off towards the top, perfectly nestled in at the center of the village with other jagged, small mountains surrounding it. It was a pretty difficult building to miss, huge and round and completely standing out from its surroundings, and it didn't look too heavily guarded as they approached it. Kana wondered if it was because the village had such an outstanding military presence that they felt there was no way anyone could get into the heart of their home. It really was true – they absolutely dominated in their military and economic standings even if they had a smaller population than the Leaf. It would make sense that they would be a little too prideful as a result.

Springing forward with the aid of chakra focused in their legs, the pair used a steady flow of chakra to grip the edge of the bulbous building which, in Kana's opinion, looked like one of those homemade Christmas ornaments you always put in the back of the tree. She almost scoffed at the gaping hole in the window – it wasn't even taped up to prevent any moisture getting into the office.

The guards inside sprang to their feet from where they had been playing what looked like a poker game, alarm flashing through their faces at varying levels at the sight of intruders.

"Storm style, Lightning Steel A-"

Using Kamui to revert her body into an intangible state, Kana watched the sparking arrow pass through her body just as her feet touched the cold floor of her dimension before reappearing at the Kumo-nin's side. Storm Release was a pretty neat kekkei genkai – maybe she'd steal him for Kabuto to play with. There had been whispered stories of a coveted black lightning that intrigued her in her younger years, and it was supposedly linked to Storm Release.

The shinobi spun around to bury the sharpened ends of his steel bow into her neck. He was faster than Kana had thought he would be, that was for sure, but twenty years of learning to shield yourself from attacks had only become amplified since the Otsutsuki DNA was spliced with her own. The shield appeared without her honestly even really thinking about it, wrapping around the brushed metal and snapping it in two.

Without missing a beat he formed another hand seal, "Typhoon Br-"

Kana reached out and, with her hand flat, struck him under the ear. Like the shinobi guard on the outdoor pathway on their way here, he was sucked into Kamui's dimension before his body could fall limp to the floor. Unlike the other guard, however, he would regain consciousness in a few hours.

Across the room she watched Yuki strike out with her fingertips to jab at a tenktetsu. The way she danced about her opponents looked almost like the dance of a primadonna, never staying in one spot for longer than a second before twirling away from a blade coming down to slash through her hip. While her enemies were still following through the movements of their attacks, her fingers danced over four more tenktesu before her palm thrust out into of their chests.

"Leave one alive, child," Kana reminded, using the Flicker Technique to flit over to her side just in time to stop Yuki from dealing the killing blow to the lone kunoichi that remained from the small batch of the Raikage Guard Platoon.

Given their status within Kumo's ranks, they're going to know everything about the Raikage's brother's whereabouts. If they didn't, then they would know who would.

Kana really was riding on the hope that A wasn't the only one.

Unfortunately, that was when A decided to grace them with his presence.

Releasing the yellow-haired kunoichi from the Ningendo, which resulted in her corpse gracelessly flopping to the floor with a muffle thud, Kana very, very subtly shifted in front of Yuki while turning to face the Raikage. His skin, normally the same color of a rich cocoa powder, was tinged red as his fury built, piercingly black eyes scanning the room and assessing the situation.

He most likely didn't recognize her thanks to the mask that covered her face during their last meeting, but that same mask was currently strapped to the side of Yuki's head. As soon as he saw it then he would think that the Hidden Leaf had ties to the Akatsuki – something Kana didn't want to happen, which was part of why she left her forehead protector with Neji.

A wasted no time in releasing an enraged roar before charging towards the two like a massive gorilla of a man – if that gorilla had the muscle definition of a fine-chiseled boulder… And if that boulder was encased in lightning.

Kana reached behind her to grab Yuki by the upper arm, spinning around while darting to the side.

 _'Trust me,'_ was all she could say before her Rinne Sharingan sucked the child into her Kamui Dimension.

The Raikage crashed into his desk just a second later and, with a swiftness that in no way matched his lumbering frame, skidded around for a second assault.

"You Akatsuki bastards!" His voice was nothing short of bellowing as he punched through empty air where Kana had been standing just a second before, "Sneaking into my home in the middle of the _night_ – killing my people – have you no _valor_?! Have you so little _pride_ in yourself as a shinobi that you could not face the Village Hidden in the Clouds –"

There was a reason Kana had only been to the Land of Lightning a handful of times in her life: the Hokage felt that there would be a conflict of interest.

The kunoichi bounced in and out of Kamui to avoid what would have been a Lariat that could have cut her head clean off. "In the past, I would have wanted nothing more than to be given the opportunity to kill you," she used her left eye to shove A as far away as possible so she could make a break for the broken window, "But, the Akatsuki cares about neither you nor your people."

A scowled.

She matched his hateful gaze with her own.

The Raikage was responsible for Hizashi Hyuga's death.

"Think of this as you paying your due," Kana hissed, applying chakra to her legs as she began to reach the edge of the office building. With the flick of her finger a sharp claw snapped out of the black ring that she still wore – she nicked her thumb and was dragging it over the summoning tattoo parallel to Hanako's by the time the Raikage's hands were reaching out to grab her ankles.

Fear flickered through Kana at the white-hot sensation of lightning licking at her booted legs, which was soon followed by an almost impossible pressure from A's monstrous strength. She smeared her still-bleeding thumb over the back of her hand to create a barrier so that the lightning wouldn't melt her boots to her flesh but, if she used the Tendo here, he could rip her legs off with the iron grip he held her ankles in.

She might accidentally suck A into her Kamui, and Izanagi was supposed to be a last-resort kinjutsu.

Kishin screeched impatiently as he circled the Raikage's office.

Gakido was her only option in this situation.

As being the leader of the great shinobi village within the Land of Lightning would imply, the Raikage had an affinity for lightning release techniques because his chakra was of the lightning type. It was harsh, and hot, and jagged, and he was so infuriated that it flowed through him like it was a typhoon of nothing but electricity.

It was going to suck.

Kana screwed her eyes shut and created another barrier when A flipped her body around for what she imagined was to slam her body into the ground. She knew a thing or two about the different Kages, and he specialized in a type of wrestling style and, for some reason, he was completely unaffected by the black chakra that his hands pressed into. Either he was too angry to notice the pain, or he was impervious to its effects, as he began to fling her body off of the edge of his office.

That was the moment where she chose to activate her Rinnegan's Gakido, absorbing as much chakra as she could from the lightning-encased kage, hastily reversing its flow in the opposite direction before it could fry her chakra network into oblivion.

It threw A off enough to where his right arm gave out mid-throw and, as a result of having the chakra drained from specifically his arms as opposed to the lightning shell, it weakened his throw enough for her summon to catch her without killing itself.

Kana threw her hand up as she fell to expel the lightning chakra, both to save herself and to let Kishin know where she was.

The monstrous crow screeched once more and circled the office building before dive-bombing in her direction.

For a moment the ground seemed too close; the Raikage's office was one of the bottom levels of the building as opposed to how other villages set it up. Kana tried to figure out the probability of Kamui slamming her into one of the metal-like pedestals if she tried to use it at this momentum. It was probably pretty high. She'd most likely deal near-lethal damage to herself –

But, then, Kishin scooped down in the shape of a tear drop. Kana only had a second to collect her bearings and turn over to grasp at the feathers that were half the size of her body before he was flying at a near-90 degree angle back into the inky black sky.

Cool, humid mountain air tossed her hood back as the monstrous crow swiftly navigated around the Hidden Cloud's defenses. Thanks to A's thundering voice, no pun intended, nearly half of the shinobi force had been woken up by this point and they were currently showing off their rather impressive anti-air arsenal.

Despite the danger, Kana found her eyes sliding shut as her head came down to rest on the back of Kishin's neck. This had been a complete bust, for all intents and purposes. If the elite guard with the kekkei genkai, who was hopefully still passed out in her Kamui, didn't know where the Eight Tails was, then it would take a hell of a lot of time to get another opportunity to sneak back into the Hidden Cloud's administrative office to find his whereabouts.

Why the Raikage had even showed up in his office so late, without his bodyguards, was something Kana couldn't wrap her head around. It was, what, 0300? Any normal human being would have been tucked away into their bed – it wasn't as if he as Gaara of the Sand.

Dammit.

* * *

 _'Master, can you tell me something?'_

Kana didn't look up from the pork modak-yaki she was picking at with her chopsticks; she wasn't much of a fan of the mayonnaise that was drizzled all over the dish, but it had been a matter of speed and necessity so she was trying to carefully scrape away the offending egg product without smearing it all over the place. Instead, she hummed curiously and pulled away a piece of lettuce that had a particularly huge glob of mayo on it.

 _'What do your eyes do?'_

Ah, jeeze.

She sighed and continued her extraction process, "Well… The Rinnegan lets me see a lot. I can see tenktesu, I can see into Limbo, I can see chakra pathways and I can see barriers. It grants me the power to open the Eight Gates without as much trouble, I can create special chakra receivers, make portals, and there are six abilities that I can _technically_ use, but… I don't really know _how_ to yet."

Kana frowned at her meal before stuffing a rather large bite into her mouth, using the time to buy herself some time. "Tendo lets me, in short, work as a magnet. I can attract things, or shove them away. Ningendo lets me read someone's mind by pulling out their spirit. Chikushodo lets me summon animals. Gakido is how I absorb chakra and specific ninjutsu – sort of like an advanced form of our kekkei tota," she used her chopsticks to gesture towards Yuki, "There are a few others abilities I can explain later. But my right eye, the Rinne Sharingan, has the same abilities as the Rinnegan and the Sharingan."

It wasn't entirely a lie – Kana honestly had no idea how to use a lot of the abilities she had been bestowed with, even with Obito's extensive training and her own understanding of the Sharingan. However, she felt it wasn't necessary to inform Yuki of everything the Rinnegan could do, so she had no actual intention to further elaborate on topics like the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and the King of Hell. Not to mention, Shurado had proven to be an excruciating experience that she'd rather never touch base on again.

The only parts of the Rinnegan that even appealed to Kana was the potential to jump between dimensions. Apparently, some Otsutsuki members had their own personal dimensions that could be accessed once you figured out how.

The problem… Was _figuring_ _out how_.

If she did, though, Kana would essentially have access to a dozen different Kamui dimensions, and that could prove to be extremely advantageous.

 _'So you can do the same things that Itachi could do?'_ her eyes swirled curiously as she popped an entire takoyaki into her mouth. Did she not realize how on edge Kana got when she stuffed her face like that? What if she choked?

The kunoichi didn't voice her worries and just focused on chewing another large mouthful, "You know better than to talk about him."

Yuki frowned her disappointment, which made her look something like a chipmunk with all of the takoyaki still in her mouth, ' _I'm sorry, Master.'_

"Doesn't matter," Kana nodded towards the Kumo-nin that was finally beginning to stir from his restless sleep.

A few platforms over, the white-haired man groaned his discomfort as he struggled to push himself up. His eyes, only partially covered by the sunglasses he wore, scanned his surroundings with an understandably perplexed expression. Kana had to admit that she would be pretty freaked out if she woke up in a place like this, too.

After setting down her food container she bounced across the infinite chasm between the metal platform she had been sitting on. The kunoichi kneeled next to the man that attempted to jump to his feet, alarm flashing across his face, and held him down by his neck.

"The Eight Tails. Where is he?" she asked blandly, knowing that he probably wouldn't cough up the information without intense persuasion.

As expected, he gave her an indignant expression that included a scowl that caused his skin to crinkle around his mouth, "You want me ta betray Killah B? Hell no! Cloud shinobi stand togetha!"

Kana rolled her eyes and motioned for Yuki to step forward, "You know what to do."

* * *

 **Note** : I initially wanted to write the Raikage thing to be this all-out badass fight of vengeance. It was gonna be super cray. Then I realized that it would probably end up with half of the building being destroyed, which would kinda dick around with canon since it's in perfect condition right before the Kage Summit, and Kana's damn-near emotionally dead so it kind of didn't make sense.

So I saved the good fight for next chapter, which is going to be posted right after this since this was kind of slow and really only was to show how she got the intel.


	24. Chapter 24

The thing about assassins, they're really good at hiding their chakra signatures.

 _'Master!'_

Kana felt the familiar chakra signatures approach the camp just as her student's voice rang in her head, and jumped up from the bedroll fast enough to send the leaves around her into a flurry.

"What's a child doing out here?"

Flickering over to Yuki's side, Kana grabbed the wrist that was holding the long stream of chakra that was molded into the shape a katana. She chose to not pay any mind to her panicked apologies for not noticing them sooner – Kana would deal with her failure later.

For a brief moment the two only blinked in silence, weapons in hand and ready to spring into attack. When they finally recognized who they were looking at, and the realization of what was happening set in, Kakashi was the first to look at her with abject horror in his expression.

"Kana… What happened to you?" he asked quietly, eyes scanning her features.

The sword in Yuki's hand dissipated as she looked up to peer curiously up at her instructor, who ignored the questions that were directed up at her.

"I changed," she released the child's wrist but dropped her hand onto her shoulder, "I became what I needed to be."

Maybe it was the tone of her voice, or just the words themselves, but Kakashi's face somehow managed to fall even further at her response. His shoulders sagged as he pulled himself up from his crouched position, "What you _needed_ to be…?"

Next to him, the Anbu Commander just stood in a stoic silence as he watched the scene unfold.

"You wouldn't understand –"

"Then _tell_ me," Kakashi's words were spoken with a desperate hurriedness, "Tell me what's going on – tell us what's happening!"

 _"I don't understand, what happened?! What changed? What did I_ do _?!"_

The reminder of the night Kana ended things with Raido sprang into her mind, and his words echoed in her head.

A dark, wry smile curled at her lips, "Why don't you ask _him_ ," she nodded towards the Anbu commander that was still standing silently behind his teammate, "Ask _him_ what happened. Ask him what he _did_ to us."

Confusion was written all over what little of his face was exposed as his gaze flitted over his shoulder to the masked man. The commander traveling with the Copy Nin meant that they must have been on an extremely dangerous assignment – the kind of assignment that didn't exist – and the fact that he wasn't attacking meant that he probably thought things were still the same until the words left her clothed lips. His shoulders stiffened in response.

Genjutsu was a particularly nasty form of jutsu, with the Coercion Sharingan genjutsu being one of the worst of the non-Mangekyo abilities. It put your victim into their own personal form of hell, whether it be a bloodbath of their loved ones, falling through an endless void, burning alive… It was a living nightmare.

Kakashi only had half of a second to react before the jutsu was turned on him, but he only warped his Sharingan into the Mangekyo and looked down at the child still pressing her back into her master's stomach.

Putting a little girl under genjutsu? That was low, especially for –

Oh, _shit_.

"Yuki! Run!" Kana's fingers were wrapping around Koiku's hilt while her other hand shoved her student out of Kakashi's line of sight, "Don't stop!" She dropped her hand back down to her belt for the scroll of Eight Tails intel and tossed it up into the air, activating her own Mangekyo to warp it into her Kamui dimension.

Without needing any further instruction, Yuki took off into the woods fast enough to put Guy to shame.

"You're not taking her," Kana hissed, "I'll see you dead, first."

The jonin's expression was unreadable as he lowered himself into a defensive crouch, "Like you would have killed us for Itachi?"

Sparks followed the distinctive _chank_ of two blades clashing against one another. Kakashi had less than a beat's moment to pull out his kunai, but managed to get his left arm up in time to block the kunoichi's attack with the metal plates fastened to the back of his glove while the other reached for the blades on his thigh.

"You're not like the rest of the Akatsuki, Kana, you _don't_ want to hurt us –"

"The rest of the Akatsuki? You have _no_ idea what they stood for." She tightened her grip on Kioku and focused her chakra down the blade, "What do _you_ know? What does _anybody_ know? You talk about Itachi, and me, and the rest of the Akatsuki like you have _any_ clue. You don't know _anything._ They just want to create a world where no one has to _hurt_ anymore, and you're treating them like a bunch of _monsters_ that deserve to be hunted down."

It was Kakashi's turn to press back on his blade, brow knitting, "Is _that_ what you think you're doing? You think you're doing good by enslaving a child and brainwashing her to help you murder jinchuriki?!"

Kana used her right eye, copying how she had seen Obito move through the Kamui dimensions, to "phase through" her former comrade's kunai and arm, twirling around to slice him hip-to-shoulder from behind. If not for the Anbu Commander throwing a well-aimed kunai, it would have.

She dropped down to avoid the hail of shuriken he unleashed, twisting her body and jumping off to the side while throwing up a shield to eat Kakashi's Phoenix Flower Jutsu. Planting her palms on the ground, she her legs around, using the leftover inertia from her dodge to keep moving, to kick the Commander's katana out of his hands.

Ninja wire wrapped around her ankle and pulled.

Kana tucked herself into a ball and fell to the ground while swinging Kioku around to cut the wire, which had lightning rapidly encasing it; she only barely had enough time to stretch out and bring the black blade up to keep from being cut in two.

Dirt had only just begun to settle before she jumped back into a standing position, one elbow blocking a punch from Kakashi while her leg swung out to prevent the Commander from kicking her knee in. Moonlight glinted off of her former leader's katana when he brought it down to slice through her tricep. She grabbed his wrist and, twisting away from the kunai Kakashi slashed at her neck with, pushed down to force him to stumble forward. When he stumbled forward, Kana's foot planted on his back and kicked so she could vault herself forward and away from the two shinobi.

As soon as she landed she jammed Kioku into the ground and used her grip on it to spin herself around. Black chakra began to swirl in her left hand by the time her right released the hilt, and Kakashi only narrowly missed having the Rasengan blow a hole through his midsection.

"I've killed so many people for the Leaf," she snarled, releasing the jutsu in an explosive blast that sent both shinobi crashing into trees, "And for what?! So we can keep going to war, and betraying our own, just so the higher-ups can lead a comfortable life?!" Kana dodged the Commander's Water Bullet, "The jinchuriki – they're just single lives to save millions," her shuriken knocked Kakashi's from the air, "They'll just be one more dead body to add to the count _you've_ amassed."

Blood spread across her tongue when the Anbu Commander suddenly appeared out of nowhere, seemingly hovering in midair as he landed a solid kick that broke several of her teeth. The disorientation that followed during her fall gave Kakashi enough of an upper hand to appear behind her in a classic Dancing Leaf Shadow Technique; he followed her movements as she fell just long enough for bandages to wrap around her body. The Body Blast Technique made quick work of the bindings, as well as Kakashi's proximity, but she fell to the ground awkwardly and nearly sprained her wrist in the process.

Leaves fell.

Kana flicked her claw ring open and tore the flesh of her thumb open to swipe the blood over her hand's tattoo. Black chakra appeared over her body in a shell just a beat before the paper bombs attached to the leaves went off. When the Anbu Commander had time to do so was beyond her, but she had no time to worry about that as she dropped the shield, scrambled to her feet to dash towards Kioku, and brought it up to meet Kakashi's Chidori.

It truly was as if a thousand birds were chirping as the ball of lightning tore through the air. Kana smelled ozone when it passed by her ear, singeing the ends of her hair. Using her left eye for Gakido she plunged Kioku through his Chidori, absorbing the jutsu itself and reversing its rotation to expel it into the chakra encasing her blade.

Her elbow twisted upwards to jab at his forearm, sending it high, while the fingers of her other hand, wrapped in chakra claws, stabbed between his ribs as Kioku swung back towards the Commander. The combination of the two jutsu resulted in black lightning cutting through his katana even before Kioku's blade could, breaking through his attack and coming dangerously close to disemboweling him.

As Kakashi jumped back away from the fingers embedded into his flesh, the masked man twisted from the sword threatening to cleave him in two. He dropped his broken weapon and wriggled his fingers.

Ninja wire.

Seven lines of wire flashed with the movement of both his fingertips and Kana's sparking blade. If she didn't kick up and back, arching her back and twisting over his arms, she would have never seen the seven ornate swords that cut through the air so fast that the only reason Kana could see their movements was because of the Sharingan properties embedded into her right eye.

It was also how she was able to see the hidden break in each of the blades even before they separated.

In the heartbeat she had, Kana summoned the shuriken kept within her Kamui and directed them towards each of the swords. With the Seal of Confrontation she jumped up into the air, flipping her body so that she faced the ground, and teleported to the center-most shuriken just as they arced around to knock each blade off of their trajectory. Another volley of shuriken bounced them into another path, which was when Kana used her left eye for Tendo.

Fourteen blades went in two separate directions.

Eight hit their marks.

There was a soft thud when the kunoichi's feet hit the ground. She turned her back to Kakashi to the Anbu Commander, who was pinned to a tree almost directly parallel to him. "Answer something for me."

 _"_ _You are the newest recruits to the Anbu Black Ops of Konohagakure," a tall, looming man paced before the two lines of masked individuals, "These are your brothers and sisters in arms. The people standing next to you – and the others already within our ranks – are going to be more of a family to you than the parents who created you."_

 _Kana's eyes flitted around. They were in order by name, which meant Itachi was standing away from her, but she was far enough in the back to where she could get a decent look at the people around her without using her Kurogan. Each one wore the red Anbu tattoo on their shoulders and all were significantly older than the two preteens that had arrived to the ceremony together._

 _"_ _You will wholly trust anyone bearing our mark. It is the sign that they have vowed to uphold Konoha's values – and, subsequently, the Hokage's – and keep it safe, no matter the cost."_

Hiketsu raised his masked face, bloodshot eyes peering up at the kunoichi standing over him in silent acknowledgement.

"The agreement that Danzo had with the Hidden Sound. Did you know about it?"

 _"_ _These are the shinobi that you will only be able to truly put faith in, excluding our Hokage. Every Anbu will have his or her secrets. We will have assignments that, for all intents and purposes, never existed," the Commander stopped pacing and folded his arms over his chest, "However - "_

"Did you know that the Leaf was selling shinobi to Orochimaru?"

 _"_ _Your brothers and sisters are the only people who will never betray you. Because of this, you will learn to trust each and every member of Anbu absolutely – we are the only people you can trust now."_

With a nod, the Anbu Commander answered simply, "I did."

Kana stepped to the side so that the bolts of lightning that screamed through the air connected with his body; the three blades buried in his body glowed as they acted like a conductor for the electricity. She knew that the Kakashi that had been stabbed into a tree trunk was just a substitute – why he thought she didn't was beyond her.

Commander Hiketsu was silent in his agony; he learned many years ago that expressing pain was a victory to his opponents.

When she turned to her left she met the glowing red gaze of Kakashi's Mangekyo, and the world turned red.

"You've gotten good at using Obito's eye," she murmured from where she was strapped to a tree, "Considering you only have half of a Sharingan. Your genjutsu used to be pretty shit."

Kakashi's eyes, outlined with white in the inverted realm, slanted, "Just like how you used to care for the Leaf? For your _friends_?!"

With a sigh, Kana looked up at the passing clouds, "I care more for Konoha than the likes of you."

"If you cared for it, then why are you working _against_ us?!"

Just an instant later, Kakashi's eyes widened in horrified surprise when he was the one tied to a tree. He only had a second for the surprise to course through him before Kioku pierced his chest.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" she twisted the hilt, "Revel in that pain, Kakashi. It's the same pain that humanity has been inflicting on itself ever since they learned to weaponize chakra. It's the same pain that the Akatsuki wants to end. For good."

A bead of sweat rolled down from his hairline and into his mask. The effort Kakashi made to not move, lest he knock the blade around that pinned him to the tree, was obvious as he asked, "Like the pain you've been living with since Itachi died?"

Kana didn't answer.

"You had to watch him die, didn't you?" Kakashi's mismatched eyes never left her face as he spoke, even as an Illusion Kana using Shurado stepped up to sever his leg with a saw blade produced from her forearm, "You were there… When he was killed."

Kana twisted her blade.

"Life gave you a losing hand... From the start... And it's only gotten harder since you left - " Kakashi was cut off by his own tormented cry when his abdomen was cut in two by a second Illusion Kana with Shurado.

"Don't act like you know what it's been like," she hissed, "Even if you did, it wouldn't change anything." Kana turned to the new Kakashi that was strapped to a new tree just feet away from the Illusion Kakashi corpse, "Don't you want a world where people – _good_ people - like your father, and Rin, don't have to die?!" she bit the inside of her lip, "We can do _that_ – that's what we _want_! We'll be with our loved ones again!"

 _"You said that it was too late to question our decisions…"_

 _Kana looked up from the medicine she was pouring into a small cup with a raised eyebrow, "What?"_

 _"At the Akatsuki hideout, when I asked you if I made the right choice with Sasuke, you said that we were beyond the point of second guesses," Itachi spoke slowly, sadly, and kept his unfocused eyes on the floor, "But I can't help but wonder… Do we do the right thing by fighting for our people?"_

 _It was a conversation they had spoken of in the past, either alone or with Shisui. Kana set the medicine down to sit back on her heels with an somber expression that mirrored her friend's, sighing as she did so. "I don't know, 'Tachi… I used to think that our way was the right way, but what are we doing? We're **killing**. We **kill** people to preserve our ideals – sometimes people that don't **deserve** to be killed."_

 _The Leaf-nin nodded slowly as if it was exactly what he had been expecting to hear._

 _"I became a shinobi because I wanted to change this world, and to bring justice to those who deserved it," Itachi whispered, "But I'm beginning to believe that justice cannot exist in a world dominated by shinobi."_

"There will finally be justice, because there will be no Shinobi World! Everything will be perfect!"

Bringing up Rin and Sakumo a low blow, she knew that much, and it was obvious that it struck a still-raw nerve that ran deep within him.

Even so, Kakashi's eyes only looked more sad than angry, "Is that what you've been telling yourself? That you'll get to be with Itachi, and Hizashi, and everyone else? Do you really think that will happen by killing innocent people?"

"Or, what, you want me to come home and just pretend like nothing ever happened?!" The kunoichi scowled at the thought, "You want me to – to go to Anko's on Friday nights and play strip poker with the other jonin, or race with Guy for free food?! You want me to forget about the things I've seen – the things I've _learned_ about the people that were supposed to _protect_ us?!" Kana's sardonic laugh echoed through the empty air of the Tsukiyomi.

Of course she believed in their plans. The Eye of the Moon, the Infinite Tsukiyomi, was…

 _"Are you saying that Pain is right?" she couldn't bring herself to smile when Itachi reached out for her hand to lace their fingers together._

"The Akatsuki is manipulating you - you _know_ they are. You _know_ that they aren't going to make this world a better place –"

 _Itachi shook his head before burying it in the knees he had raised to his chest, "A totalitarian government isn't what I believe to be a solution," his voice wavered and was barely audible as he spoke, "There is no peace without freedom."_

It was the Tsukiyomi.

 _"You know, sometimes I hate being a shinobi."_

 _Kana didn't look away from the dismembered corpse at their feet._

 _"The murder… The crying… I can't stand it, anymore."_

 _"We have no choice," she breathed, "This is the only way we can keep our people safe."_

 _In the corner of her eye she saw Shisui's fingers curl into fists that trembled with his anger, "Is that really true, though?! Is that all we can do?! To kill other people so others don't have to?! Is that our only choice?!"_

 _Kana couldn't find an answer for his question so she stayed silent._

 _"Dammit!" he kicked a cloud of sand up into the air, where it settled over the corpse, "I wish… I wish I could just make people… Just get along! I wish I could make shinobi just go away – because they wouldn't be **needed** anymore!"_

 _She finally looked away from the dead body to peer at Shisui through the black bangs that veiled her face, "Will you?"_

 _A black wheel morphed into three tomoe before his Sharingan faded to a familiar black that glittered with the tears of frustration that went unshed. There was a long silence where neither of them said anything, the only sounds coming from the wind that howled through the rocky mountains they stood between, and Kana knew that he was trying to get a hold of himself before responding._

 _Eventually, Shisui shook his head and turned his head up towards the orange sky to blink away the moisture that clung to his lashes._

 _"Nah," he responded in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, "Peace, without freedom, isn't really peace. It'd just be an **illusion** of peace."_

Genjutsu.

An illusion.

"What else do I have to believe in?" she whispered, voice cracking with a tear finally rolling down her cheek, "This is all I _have,_ Kakashi."

"You have _us_ , Kana." With a cautious expression, Kakashi lowered his arms from the sword that threatened to cleave him in two, "Guy, Lee, Neji, Tenten, Raido, Genma, Anbu, your comrades in Root… You have _Konoha_. Believe in _that_ , and come home to the people who still care about you – to the people that you still hold precious."

The Illusion Kanas and Kakashi disappeared, and the tree that Kakashi was bound to disappeared into the void of the Tsukiyomi. "I can't come back home, Kakashi!" she half-sobbed, half-shouted, "I _stole_ information - I told the Akatsuki about the Niju Shotai! I gave them the security plans to the Sand so they could kill the Kazekage! I told them where to find the other Tailed Beasts! I _sealed_ those beasts! I'm a _traitor_ to our home!"

"But it is still your _home_."

Collapsing to her knees, Kana buried her masked face into her palms and released the genjutsu.

All she wanted was to finally be with her loved ones again. The Uchihas haunted her dreams. Her mind was weighed down by her longing to be home. She was cold with Yuki to avoid becoming attached to her, but Kana knew that she cared for her like she would her own child. She pretended her emotions didn't exist anymore out of self preservation. Kana was exhausted.

Obito promised her a way out of that pain, and she latched onto his plan out of sheer desperation.

For the entirety of her life Kana had been ordered what to do. Where to go. Who to kill. Others branded her with their marks, some granting her power while eroding her mind and others bound her tongue to silence.

Obito offered her the one thing that, in her life, had never been presented: A _choice_.

Despite the intense mental stress that clearly weighed down on him, Kakashi kneeled in front of her and placed a hand on her shoulder, "You're not the first shinobi to lose their way, Kana," he murmured, voice still just as tender as when he encouraged her as a child even though he was struggling to stay coherent, "These struggles… They're what it means to be a shinobi. What matters is whether or not you are strong enough to find it again."

 _"Why do people become shinobi?"_

 _Green eyes flitted down to the young boy that sat next to Kana, who was looking straight ahead at the Hyuga garden. Slated to enroll in the ninja academy next fall, Neji was beginning to show an increased interest in what it meant to be a warrior for one's village – it made sense that he'd be curious about what he's fighting for, even if the suddenness of his question caught her off guard._

 _Kana looked back to the small pond to watch a jasmine flower drop onto the water's glassy surface from one of the overhanging branches, trying to carefully come up with an answer._

 _"Well... People become shinobi for their own reasons. No one really has the same exact reason, and not everyone knows what their reason is until after they start taking missions…" She reached up to run her fingers through the tangled ends of her hair, "Your nindo is unique to your own ideals – a lot of the Shimi Clan members become shinobi to bring pride to the family, but their nindo evolves as they spend more time in the field."_

 _Neji never tore his eyes away from the serenity of the garden as he raised his tea cup to his lips to slurp at the steaming green tea pensively. Even at just a few days past six years old, he never ceased to astound Kana with how deep in thought he could become. The death of his father less than two years ago certainly changed him to be more somber, yes, but even as a toddler there was a look he would get in his eye during discussions where you could see there was much more going on than what was being said._

 _After several long minutes of comfortable silence, he finally set his cup down into his lap and looked up to peer at the jonin curiously. "Do you know your nindo?"_

 _A tender, fond smile played across Kana's lips, and she leaned down to press a kiss to his baby-soft cheek._

 _"I continue to be a shinobi so others don't have to, Neji," she murmured, "My ninja way is to preserve the freedom of our people – to protect our home, and the people I love, at any cost."_

 _With an acknowledging nod, Neji focused his pearly white eyes back on the pond, where more jasmine flowers had begun to skim along the surface. Those eyes, which she had come to adore, slowly slid shut when Kana started to hum a gentle song about a dango family._

What she didn't explain then was how being a shinobi helped her preserve these precious little moments. Every cloud has a silver lining.

 _"Please understand. I'm doing this for the village. I'm doing this for you, and Lee, and the rest of Konoha."_

How did Kana let things go so awry? How did she allow herself to become so disillusioned that she began to ingrain those skewed ideals onto a _child_?

"Senpai…" she looked up at the Anbu Commander, "Sir…" Kana couldn't finish her sentence. Her head fell back down as more tears streamed down her cheeks to soak into her mask.

"Lady Tsunade is willing to strike deals with those who come in willingly," the Commander assured her quietly, "If you come home, I will be there to verify your story."

Of course she was – the Village Hidden in the Leaves was known for taking in those who had nowhere else to go, even if they were once enemies.

Pale lilac hair swung back and forth with the shake of her head, "But… But _why_ …"

A bloodied hand rose to rest on Kana's other shoulder, "I told you, years ago, that the Anbu Black Ops is a family…" Commander Hiketsu paused to cough, "And I feel partially responsible for how everything turned out. I admit that I didn't try as hard as I could have – I didn't anticipate that the effect of Itachi's death would be so immense for you."

Still, she knew that she had crossed a line that few ever dared, betraying the Anbu Black Ops and throwing away her title as Captain to join a terrorist organization. Imprisonment was a guarantee. Execution was a strong possibility.

It wasn't an undeserved fate.

A light breeze rolled through the forest before a familiar seven-note whistle reached her ears.

Kana lifted her head to meet her old friend's gaze, feeling the drying tear tracks irritate the skin of her cheeks as she did so. By this point Kakashi had pulled his hitai ate down to cover his Sharingan but there was an understanding in his lone exposed eye that broke the heart that she had long since thought was too damaged to feel anymore. It was the same expression that the kidnapped Anbu wore when she woke up with them circled around her.

Moistening her lips by flitting her tongue over them, Kana repeated the whistle with the addition of two notes.

They were Anbu.

She picked herself up off of the ground and patted the dirt off of her knees, "I have some things to take care of, first."

With a nod, Kakashi rose to a standing position and gestured towards the Commander, "Think you can take care of him first?"

A pang of guilt shot through her chest as she dropped back down to a crouching position at the reminder that her leader was still stuck to the tree. With the help of Kakashi she was able to very, very, slowly pull the blades out of his body and toss them to the side before she focused healing chakra to staunch the bleeding.

Ironic as it was, she had lost most of her healing abilities with the acquisition of the Rinnegans. Kana could heal herself to an extent, barring that it wasn't a broken neck or lethal heart injury, but she no longer possessed the ability to use the white chakra on others. It was infuriating, to say the least, to have to resort to the standard green glow of basic medical ninjutsu to heal the worst of her commander's wounds. Kana was more than thankful for his own understanding of healing jutsu, as it sped up the process and kept him from bleeding out or going into shock.

Commander Hiketsu truly was an exceedingly marvelous shinobi. To withstand this much damage, and electrocution, and still capable of performing basic jutsu to preserve his own life… Kana nearly shook her head in amazement at just how durable he was.

"I need to find my student," she said after helping the Anbu Commander to his feet. He wasn't at one hundred percent, but he was able to travel in his current condition and they weren't too far from Konoha.

"She's a Kana, isn't she?" Kakashi hooked his arm over his broad shoulders and readjusted his weight to find his center of balance, "What will you do with her once you've come home?"

Kana wiped her bloodied hands on her Akatsuki cloak and shook her head, "If I'm not executed for war crimes… I don't know." She sighed at the thought. The poor girl would just be passed onto someone else, most likely. She didn't want her to wind up with the Shimi Clan again, but she didn't want her to wind up in an orphanage…

A thought occurred to her, and she looked up from her mostly-clean hands to meet Kakashi's gaze, "If… If they do kill me… Do you think… Guy would…"

Kakashi shrugged nonchalantly in a way that his brooding eyes betrayed before turning to walk away.

"Ask him when you get back."

Despite his back being to her, Kana nodded subtly in agreement.

She'd ask when she went home.

For the first time in longer than she could remember, a small flicker of warmth sparked in her chest. It would be okay if she was executed. Kana would be going home. She would see her village and her comrades and her most precious people again, even if it was only in her final moments.

* * *

Yuki was keeling over and gasping for air when her master appeared by her side; she had one hand clutching at the fabric covering her chest and the other supporting her weight against a boulder. Upon realizing Kana's appearance, she shook her head and locked eyes just long enough to establish a connection, _'I'm… I'm sorry, master, I had to stop. I had to-'_

Kana cut her off by wrapping her arms around her shoulders to pull Yuki into her chest. She rested her cheek against the side of her head. "Are you hurt? Did anyone catch you? Are you okay?"

There were a few moments of startled silence where the child struggled with the current situation. Thoughts such as whether or not her master was under genjutsu, or she was a fake, but she eventually relaxed enough to shake her head again and sink into the body that she was held tightly against.

It was in that moment when Kana realized that she smelled like flowers. How had she never noticed this before?

She buried her face into Yuki's hair; she smelled like gardenias over the distinct scent of sweat.

"I'm gonna take you away from this," she whispered, "We're gonna go away to someplace safe for you."

Yuki didn't answer, only snuggling closer into her master and falling asleep.


	25. Chapter 25

**Note** : I just watched The Will of Fire movie and OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THAT MY MISSING ANBU ARC WAS BASICALLY HALF OF THE SAME PLOT? I'm so embarrassed lol. My movie knowledge is so shit, I've only seen four of them (Five including this one). They just always seem weird. Like, even the villages the shinobi were taken from were almost identical.

I feel so defeated lol. I put so much work into creating the details for that entire story bit. Christ.

Anyways, I'm screwing with a bit of canon for this chapter because the location of Team Guy was pretty irrelevant and I always thought it was really silly how Katsuyu was apparently this all-powerful being that stopped Pain's explosion. Sooo.

* * *

Two years.

It had been over two, long, agonizing years.

Kana's eyes scanned the high walls of the village from the tree she was perched in, breathing in the warm, familiar air of the forest. She could smell the leaves, and the wood of the trees, and the moist earthy scent of the rich soil, and the sweetness of the breeze that rustled her hair.

It was the smell of home.

To the side of her head, Yuki's legs dangled from the above branch she sat in as she hummed the tune to a familiar song. She didn't seem to understand exactly what it meant to be so close to Konoha in the middle of the day, but was content nonetheless with their current situation even when Kana failed to answer her questions when she asked why they were leaving the organization.

For three weeks she searched for Sasuke after delivering the intelligence on the Eight Tails to Black Zetsu. Obito said that he was somewhere in the Land of Lightning, for reasons he refused to elaborate on, but she couldn't find him despite scouring the country for him and the Uzumaki girl with the strange chakra. A part of her wondered if it was for the best that she failed to zero in on his location – chances were, he would be too set in his ways to leave with her.

The thought made the dark blanket of depression feel even heavier on her chest. It was what made her second-guess, then triple-guess, her decision to come home. Kana wanted nothing more for a world to exist like the one that the Infinite Tsukiyomi would pretend to be, which was why she initially requested it from Itachi. She only wanted to finally feel the happiness she was so desperate to remember. She wanted to see that happiness in Sasuke's eyes, as opposed to the inky black hatred for everything their current world had to offer.

A heavy, sad sigh escaped her lips at the reminder of what he had become. Sixteen years old and, already, it seemed that his life was forever destroyed.

She wondered if he'd ever be able to truly find happiness again.

She wondered if either of them would.

Leaves were jostled from their branches when Kana dropped to the forest floor, gently rocking back and forth through the air at a leisurely pace that was only disturbed by the breeze that followed soon after. Itachi's headband was cool to the touch when she reached for where it was tucked away into the bag strapped to her hip, running a thumb over the Leaf insignia that was scratched out so many years ago.

 _"There is no peace without freedom."_

His words lifted the blanket over her chest, even if only by a smidgen. Itachi was wise in just as many ways as he was foolish but, when it came to the things he was wise about, he made even a sage come off as an inexperienced child. It was those words that Kana clung to as she began to walk towards the village gates. It was those words that she told herself she could believe in as she ushered Yuki forward, who held a familiar lavender jade medallion in her tiny palm.

"I will come for you when I can," she murmured, "Until then, seek refuge with the Hyuga Clan. They are our friends."

Kana decided that she couldn't just drop the child into Guy's lap like she wanted to – it wouldn't be fair to the man to put the constant reminder of his greatest failure in his life. The Hyugas would care for a Shimi child like the Shimis would care for one of theirs; the relationship the two clans shared truly was unique.

Swirling eyes flashed in response. Yuki was worried about her master leaving her alone but knew better than to insist she come with so, with one final wistful look, she turned towards the heavy wooden gates and made her way to the village entrance. When she passed through the village sensing barrier and, therefore, safe, Kana stepped back into the treeline and looked up in time to see four figures peering down at her through their masks. A familiar seven-tone whistle passed through her lips, and they dropped down to stand around her in a practiced formation.

"Kana Shimi, formerly known as Anbu Captain Tsuki, you are under arrest…" Imai's voice wavered only slightly as Shedo fastened specially made cuffs around her wrists. They were made from reinforced steel that had the formula for a fuuinjutsu that would render the wearer incapable of using enough of their chakra to make any sort of escape.

"… For desertion, committing espionage against the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and for willingly working with the terrorist organization, the Akatsuki..."

The kunoichi next to him clicked a set of plain metal cuffs around Kana's ankles and hooked them to the chain hanging from her hand cuffs.

"…You will be brought before the Hokage and the Konoha Council for trial following temporary imprisonment, which is where your fate shall be decided."

Kana tried not to grimace from the discomfort brought on by having her chakra network impeded from the sealing cuffs. It didn't hurt, but it was pretty uncomfortable to have what felt like your life force being suppressed. Still, she maintained face and nodded to show that she acknowledged what Imai was saying as she was led towards the village gates. It looked as if he had fully recovered from his time of imprisonment – that was good. He was pretty messed up when they last saw each other, barely capable of stringing words together into a coherent sentence.

It had been over two years since Kana actually walked through the gates, as opposed to sneaking in from other directions. Passing through the village entrance during the day, with the sun shining down on her head and the warm balmy summer breeze causing her bangs to momentarily cover her eyes, was something that the kunoichi imagined would be a moment that would erase the hollow ache that came with being forsaken by her home. In the dead of night, when she was all alone, Kana imagined that she would be wearing a smile that her friends would be mirroring in their own ways as they welcomed her back home.

In her mind this should have been a perfect scenario.

Instead, she looked over her shoulder at the two shinobi sitting under the small pavilion provided at the gate guard station; the two unfamiliar faces looking back at her only reminded that this wasn't the perfect scene she envisioned in her moments of solitude. It couldn't be, not when Izumo and Kotetsu were long dead.

Kana didn't keep her head bowed while they walked through Konoha's streets. As much as she wanted her hair to be removed from its ponytail so she could hang her head and have it cover her face, to hide from those she had shamed by her betrayal, the shinobi kept her eyes forward and only allowed them to linger on particular faces every now and then.

Most didn't even recognize her – her appearance had changed so much in the years she had been gone that they all must have thought they were looking at a completely different person. Some whispered to one another, asking if they truly were seeing a member of the Akatsuki. Others simply cursed her and turned away.

The ones that were able to recognize her, either because they recognized her chakra signature or just _knew_ … They were the ones that Kana looked away from. Mismatched eyes passed over their expressions of hate and anger, pretending to not take notice.

Cool, damp air sent a shiver down her spine when they reached the maximum security prison, located deep beneath Hokage Rock. It was separate from the village's normal jail inside the Konoha Intelligence Division's building; this facility was all rock and reinforced steel that was apparently made with the help of foreign users of the coveted steel and magnet release bloodline traits. Much like the cuffs that bound her wrists, there were fuuinjutsu markings running up and down each cold metal bar of the cell to ensure that the prisoner held within wouldn't be able to escape, even if they somehow broke through the chakra suppressing cuffs.

It was efficient to say the least.

Shedo and the kunoichi left their teammates to guard the cell.

Kana sat down on the floor, and waited.

* * *

 _Boom_.

The Anbu guarding her cell both looked up at the rocky ceiling, then at one another when another heavy sound echoed through the bare halls of the prison.

"Do you think…?"

Shigure tilted his head, "Yeah."

Fully opening her eyes to take in her surroundings, Kana narrowed her eyes and paid careful attention to what little sounds made their way through the solid rock. They were only barely audible, but there was no mistaking the sounds that every shinobi could recognize within an instant.

Explosions. The distinct wailing of an alarm siren ringing through the Anbu HQ.

Konoha was under attack.

Almost as soon as the realization hit her, the two guards looked back at her as they clearly warred over whether or not to abandon their post to defend the village against the unknown invaders that had been wreaking havoc for nearly half an hour. Even though Kana no longer had her dojutsu, she could practically hear their internal debates. Could she escape if they left? Were the seals strong enough? If they didn't leave, would their comrades die?

There was another explosion, this one considerably closer if the way that the floor shook slightly was any indication.

"I can hardly stand," Kana said faintly, too weak to raise her voice much louder than a murmur, "I'm not going anywhere like this."

It wasn't a lie – the kunoichi was barely able to keep herself upright in her current position, only able to do so by centering herself through practiced meditation. Mismatched eyes opened just long enough to flit upwards at the ceiling where the imprisoning seal was placed. Unlike the cuffs on her hands, which inhibited her chakra flow, the jail cell seal itself sapped a calculated amount of chakra based off of how much it could sense you created, so you were left in an especially weakened state.

The constant cycle of her body struggling to replenish the chakra that was slowly being sapped was leaving her in a miserable condition that carried in her tone. It was borderline torture.

The pair hesitated.

"Our home – our people – are in danger! You're wasting time!" She tried to bring back the commanding tone she used to carry when she was a captain, but the chakra draining effects of the specially-made cell left Kana too tired to sound anything other than mildly irritated.

There was another moment's hesitation, but this one had a different feel about it as the two Anbu units exchanged hidden glances. Saki reached out to her teammate's back and began tapping at it in what was clearly Morse, hidden away from Kana's Rinne Sharingan so she couldn't read their silent conversation. He looked back at the kunoichi only briefly before mirroring her movements.

After an agonizingly long minute, they both nodded and stepped towards the jail cell.

"Did… Did you really save my Haru, like everyone says you did..?" Saki asked quietly, "Were you really the one that rescued all those Anbu from Orochimaru?"

Kana blinked stupidly as the two stared expectantly at her through the reinforced bars. What the _fuck_ did this have to do with anything?

She bit her lip and twisted the fabric of her cloak in her fists, "You know that you're important to me. You all are. Always."

There was another pause that was soon followed by the jangle of keys being slid into a metal lock. Were they really...?

"If you let me out of this cell, you'll be put on trial for treason," Kana reminded them, narrowing her eyes to emphasize her point.

There seemed to be no more hesitation, as Shigure clicked open the lock and stepped aside so the heavy door could swing open. He fiddled with the small ring of keys before finding a brass one that he swiftly slid into the keyhole on the cuffs binding Kana's wrists.

"Then I pray to the gods that this is worth it."

The kunoichi was hoisted to her feet the second the cuffs clattered to the floor, with Saki helping her stagger out of the cell to lean against the cool stone wall. Nearly as soon as her feet exited the cell there was a sense of relief that washed over her; it was a feeling not too unlike the sensation of taking the first large gulp of air after being underwater for an extended period of time. Goosebumps sprang up across Kana's skin, which tingled at the new wave of chakra, and she felt physically lighter with every moment she spent outside of the oppressive chamber.

Once the near-dizzying relief began to pass, Kana pushed herself off of the wall to turn to the two Anbu units that waited patiently for her to recover.

"First thing's first, we need to figure out what the hell is happening," she motioned for them to run with her down the hall, "It sounds like there are multiple attackers spread across the city. Shigure, use your Kurogan to pinpoint how many."

There were several moments of silence while he did as he was told. The sounds of their Anbu boots clacking through the halls filled the air, only interrupted by the occasional sounds of buildings being smashed. Either they were under attack by those with access to bombs, or these were massive opponents.

Finally, he answered, "It looks like there are six – seven – in total. They have multiple summons, as well. Large ones with metal horns."

Summons with metal horns?

"They're Akatsuki."

Kana ignored the sickening feeling of her stomach dropping at those two words. This was what they wanted information on the Leaf for – she gave it to them, and now it was time to tell them to get the hell out of her neighborhood. So, instead, she focused on his exact words as they rounded a corner.

"We didn't have seven members," she said matter-of-factly, "There are two from Amegakure, one from the Hidden Mist, and two from Konoha. Are you sure they're all Akatsuki?"

Obito wouldn't get involved in something like this, Kabuto was more of a hired contractor than anything else, same with Taka, the Zetsu weren't combatants as far as she was aware… That meant only Pain, Konan and Kisame would be around for an assault, right? Who were the others?

Behind her, Shigure hummed, "Absolutely. They're all wearing the robes, but there's something strange about the first six…"

"And that is?" Kana couldn't help but let her impatience slip into her tone as they took the stairs two at a time; this wasn't the time to relay information at a leisurely pace.

"They all have similar piercings to one another. They're sort of like the summons in that regard. But… They all have the same exact chakra signature - it's like they're all the same person, split up into six bodies."

The kunoichi skidded to a stop.

Bearers of the Rinnegan had access to the Six Paths Power, which they could alternate between at will without expending vast amounts of chakra. However, Kana knew that they could also create black receivers that essentially acted as chakra transmitters that could be used for a multitude of purposes, many of which were still unknown. She _did_ know that it was possible to use those receivers in a corpse to sort of reanimate them and put them under your control using Gedo…

Her mind's eye flashed back to the number of black piercings in Pain's face. What if he wasn't the true Pain, but a puppet – a frontman of sorts? If that was true, and he was attacking the village with his Six Paths…

"They're here for the Nine Tails," Kana began running again, "If they don't find him, they'll most likely wipe out the village as a way to back him into a corner. Regroup with the others and begin evacuating the village."

The trio burst through the prison entrance and raced through Anbu HQ.

"What about you?"

Kana looked over her shoulder just long enough to meet Saki's gaze but didn't answer, instead bringing her hand up for the familiar Seal of Confrontation while praying with every bit of might that she had that Neji kept the promise he made the night she left the village.

There was an unpleasant sensation of twisting and pulling as the kunoichi teleported. She couldn't get an exact grasp of the surroundings of the seal she was jumping to, as it moved too quickly and there were too many things happening around it, so Kana was riding on the hope for level ground when her body was pulled out of the space-time ninjutsu.

Her cloak didn't have time to finish swirling around her ankles before she was swiping a bloodied thumb over her left hand, throwing her arms out to pulse a strong blast of chakra outwards even before the dome shield was completed.

The blast knocked the giant crustacean off of its course enough to tilt it to the side, sending it veering into what Kana could only hope was an empty building that crumbled beneath its weight. It toppled over onto its side for her to see the black chakra receiver spike jutting out of the underbelly of its shell – this was definitely one of Pain's summons.

She risked a glance back at the three shinobi that wore expressions of varying levels of shock and intense concern; Tenten looked nearly stunned stupid with the way her mouth hung open.

"Are any of you hurt?" Kana released the shield that only barely protected them from the gargantuan crab-like creature that was already flipping itself over onto its legs to prepare for another attack.

"K-Kana?! Are you truly here –?!"

"We're uninjured," Neji cut Lee off while preparing to defend himself from the summon.

Ignoring the excruciating feeling of a black receiver being pushed through the skin of both palms, Kana tossed one over to Tenten, who deftly snatched it out of the air and mirrored her movements by jumping back to create distance. They twirled the receivers around to gain momentum before slamming them into the ground so that they were directly parallel to one another.

Neji grabbed their teammate by the collar to drag him back just as the crustacean began its charge towards them.

Kana grit her teeth against the pain to make a third receiver, rushing directly towards the creature as if to attack it head-on. Just when it was about to swipe at her with one of the massive claws that would surely sever her body in two, she pushed chakra into her feet to jump upwards and launch herself into the air, flipping over its head and landing on the hard shell of its back that she immediately began to sprint along. The instant Kana reached the tail, she spun the receiver around to build up inertia just before throwing it as hard as she could, much like one would throw a javelin, so that it pierced the rocky ground.

As soon as the triangle of receivers were in place she was using the seal on her hand to create a cage of chakra, using the receivers to amplify the power of the shields as to ensure they were strong enough to imprison the monstrous crustacean. Tattooed hands flitted through hand signs even as Kana was jumping up away from the crab; she placed them against the barrier the second her weathered boots came in contact with the ground.

"Iron Maiden Jutsu."

Nearly a hundred black spikes protruded from the chakra prison walls. The crustacean could only thrash its body in silent agony as they cracked and pieced its shell to plunge into the soft flesh beneath it; it was gone in a puff of smoke within seconds.

"Is it dead?" Tenten asked once the smoke began to disappear into the wind, no longer confined by the chakra barrier that dissipated only moments earlier.

Kana shook her head, "I don't know. Probably not. Once Pain realizes that it's been defeated, he'll probably re-summon it the second it's been healed with Jigokudo."

"Which will be how long?"

Again, she shook her head to Neji's question, "I don't know." Truth was, she didn't know a damn thing about the extent of Pains' abilities, or even what he was capable of doing; all Kana knew was that he had about twenty years of experience on her when it came to using the Rinnegan. From what she knew about the Six Paths, however, was that the bodies you reanimated with receivers supposedly were like extra sets of eyes that you could see through. If the black receiver in the crustacean, and its Rinnegan eyes, were anything to go by then Kana figured it was safe to assume that Pain could see through them, as well.

Her head turned in the direction of another explosion in time to see a cloud of dust billow up over the partially destroyed infrastructures that blocked her view.

"Yuki. Where is she?"

Neji gave her a rather hopelessly apologetic look, "I cannot say – we only just returned to the village no more than ten minutes before you found us," he answered in a tight voice.

The kunoichi didn't bother wait a response, raising her hand to form the seal that would teleport her to Yuki's location. She wasted no time in taking the child by the hand, other hand still raised, to whisk them both back to where Kana was standing only seconds earlier.

"H-how - ?!"

"Later," Kana carefully inspected her student to make sure she was in good shape, ignoring Lee's disappointed and obviously perplexed babbling of "I do not understand" variants. When she decided that Yuki was ready to fight, Kana craned her neck to meet the three pairs of eyes that looked back at her in confusion.

"I love you," was the last thing to slip past her lips before the Rinne Sharingan sucked her and Yuki into the Kamui dimension.

They were grown shinobi, with Neji being an accomplished jonin at only seventeen years old; they didn't need her to tell them what their next best move would be. Kana didn't want her potential final words to the three shinobi that had been like siblings to her to be something coarse or demanding. That was enough.

As soon as their feet touched into Kamui, she was already bouncing them out to where she had seen the last building crumble.

"In a battle like this, we can't heal everyone to completion," Kana explained as they rushed over to three bleeding shinobi, "Only spare enough chakra so that they can move, even if they need to rely on each other to walk."

Yuki nodded silently, already applying medical ninjutsu to what looked like several broken ribs that probably punctured multiple organs. Her normally bright face was twisted into an expression of utmost concentration, eyes grim and tight as she assessed the damage quietly. The Anbu mask Kana had given her nearly six months ago was still strapped to the side of her head and her goggles dangled about her neck, not having been given enough time to pull either of them into position while she was being dragged into the battlefield.

If the man beneath her wasn't gasping for air through the blood that pooled in his lungs, Kana would have admitted to herself that she was proud of her student for having such a cool composition. Instead she carefully worked at repairing the multiple puncture wounds in the organs that were caused by what looked like a building's support beam splintering and exploding outwards. His left leg was the next order of business – both the hip and femur suffered a total of three breaks from a chunk of rubble nearly half his size landing on his leg, and would take more chakra than Kana could afford to fully heal.

She grabbed a fistful of her sleeve and tugged so that it tore cleanly from the shoulder seam. It took a couple of long moments that were filled with the chunin's agonized moans but, eventually, Kana was able to properly set his leg well enough to safely apply chakra that healed the breaks just enough so that they couldn't get nudged out of place. When she was done she grabbed two of the larger pieces of broken wood paneling that littered the ground amongst the rest of the rubble, splitting her sleeve down the middle to wrap the makeshift splint in two places.

Thankfully the third unit in their squad only suffered a broken arm and a rather nasty cut to his head, and was able to act as a pillar for his comrades to lean on so they could make their way to what was likely an overburdened hospital. All three of them were so dazed from their injuries, and the shock of the invasion, that they didn't even question why a member wearing the same robes as the invaders was helping them.

There was another squad no more than twenty meters from their position that had been crushed by a building that must have crumbled around their ears. Two of them suffered mortal wounds to the head that looked to be an instantaneous death, but the other two were quickly attended to once the rocks were pushed away with a couple quick bursts of chakra.

The kunoichi was suffering from two broken legs, a shattered pelvis and probably had a nasty concussion from the blow to the back of her head when she collapsed to the ground. Kana repeated the actions she performed on the earlier chunin, tearing the end of her cloak into a long strip that she tore into smaller ones after carefully setting the Leaf-nin's legs. There wasn't much more she could do than that, given the limited resources, so Kana waited for Yuki to finish up repairing her patient's internal bleeding before two clones very, very carefully picked her up off of the ground with the assistance of her teammate.

"I-I don't unders-s-s-stand," one jonin gurgled through the blood in his mouth, "Wh-why -?"

Kana shushed him quietly while her chakra worked at repairing the damage done to his throat and chest, "It doesn't matter," she murmured, "Don't waste your breath."

His blue eyes fluttered shut in resignation, too weak to argue and too in pain to focus. Faint color began to return to his cheeks within just a few more minutes. The kunoichi carefully closed the lacerations in his trachea and was able to remove the bits of tissue that clogged his bronchi to help with the breathing he previously struggled to maintain. There was a fair amount of shrapnel and debris lodged in his chest cavity that Kana had to gingerly fish out with what few senbon she had, using them almost like chopsticks while pulling out the bigger pieces that were dangerously close to piercing his heart.

After the first couple of dozen injured, Kana began to lose count of how many they tended to. She wasn't sure how long they had been working as they hauled an exceptionally large shinobi out from a sinkhole caused by some sort of suiton. The sounds of pain and hysteria began to merge together to a dull roar that filled Kana's ears while she staunched the bleeding of a kunoichi's severed arm.

To say that the village was in shambles would be an understatement. Looking around, eyes searching for another wounded shinobi to attend to, Kana could only hardly process just how catastrophic the damage was so far. They had yet to see a building that wasn't all but obliterated, reduced to shattered rock and splintered wood that only told the story of a shell of what was once a part of the village.

Yuki was beginning to look just as distressed while tending to a man that looked like he was the victim of a vicious bear attack. It was likely that she had never seen so many corpses in her short lifetime, never mind corpses that were left in the states they were in. This was the first time Yuki was seeing war.

"I need a medic! Right fucking quick!"

Aoba? Kana whipped her head around to try to locate the source of the voice that was calling out for help. Sure enough, Aoba was crouching next to two bloodied figures and looking around frantically, clearly wanting to run for help but too scared to leave his comrades alone.

She jumped over a high pile of rubble and dashed over to his side, Yuki hot on her heels. The shinobi closest to Aoba wore his forehead protector in a bandana-style over the light brown hair that fell around his chin – for one, terrifying moment, Kana thought she was staring at Genma's corpse. It wasn't until she used the Rinnegan to see his active chakra network, and got a close up of his face once he was rolled over onto his back, that she realized that the man was a tokubetsu jonin that worked in the Konoha Aviary.

Next to Takajo, however…

Fear slammed into Kana's gut as she scrambled over to the shinobi's figure, rolling him onto his back so she could take his pulse; it was so rapid and so weak that she knew he wasn't going to make it more than a few minutes if he didn't get attention now.

Using a chakra scalpel to cut at the arm holes, Kana tore away what was left of the man's tattered, bloody flak jacket with trembling hands that glistened with the blood of countless others.

"Yuki, cut this into strips," she ordered while shrugging off the final remains of what was left of her cloak, "Use as many as you need to stop the bleeding in his leg, and to make a splint."

Next to her, Aoba scowled, "So, what, you're on our side now?!"

Kana ignored him so she could focus all of her attention on the man that was quickly going into shock, "Keep your eyes open."

She allowed a little more chakra to flow through to speed up the repair of his chest cavity. Upon closer inspection it looked as if two monstrously large claws tore through his body, one nearly severing his leg and the other cutting through both of his lungs and significantly damaging his heart.

Dark eyelashes fluttered as the shinobi struggled to maintain consciousness.

"What the fuck is going on?! Why is the Akatsuki attacking the village, and why are you helping us -?!"

"Aoba, if you want him to live then shut up!" Tears sprang into Kana's eyes when the man coughed up even more blood and his eyes began to slide shut, "Dammit, I said keep your eyes _open_!"

The green glow of chakra began to extend throughout his chest in millions of impossibly small strings, snaking through his chakra system and attaching themselves to each cell in his body like a new form of antibody. Kana had only used the Cell Activation Jutsu once in her life, having insisted Tsunade teach it to her when she learned that it was what saved Lee in surgery, and it was on a man that ended up dying from bloodloss only moments later.

It wouldn't happen to him.

She wouldn't let it.

The kunoichi concentrated, screwing her glistening eyes shut so she could focus entirely on the chakra that was working its way through his body.

"Don't die – please, _please_ …" Kana bit her lip, "Raido, please, _don't die_!"

With a tiny burst to each string of chakra weaving through his system, Kana activated the cells in Raido's body so they could start repairing each other. This was technically only to be used in surgical settings, but she needed the extra time it would buy her. The Cell Activation Jutsu would begin to repair the finer injuries and damaged bones, which allowed Kana to focus on what was going to make Raido suffocate to death.

 _'His leg is repaired,'_ Yuki said a little too quickly, sensing her master's stress levels.

"Good, c-come up here and… His lungs…" Kana could only hardly force her mouth to make words as her hands trembled.

She wasted no time in sidling up to Raido's upper body, placing her hands over where her master's had been just a moment before to use white tinkling chakra to restore the bottom halves of his lungs, the now-dead halves having been scooped out to make room.

Kana's fingers moved up to hover over the heart that throbbed erratically; her eyes never left Raido's ashen face.

"Rai… Rai, I'm sorry," she ground out through clenched teeth as if snapping her jaw shut would stop the tears that streamed down her cheeks and into her mask, "I'm sorry – I never meant… Everything I said, everything I did, _I'm so_ _sorry_ ," Kana bit back a sob and shifted her palms for the Mystical Palm Technique to have better access to the bottom of the right ventricle, "I thought… I thought we were doing _good_ – I thought we were going to make the world a better place… I was just so tired of watching people I love die… I hated the village leaders for everything that they did… I was so lonely, I was in so much pain _all_ of the _time_ – it was the only thing I ever _felt_!"

Lavender hair fell about her face a she hung her head; tears dripped onto her fingers and mixed in with the sticky blood that still covered them.

"I just wanted it to stop – I wanted everything I felt to _just stop_ … But, this –" Kana shook her head hard enough for her hair to swing back and forth, sending tears to and fro, "This wasn't what I wanted! I didn't want them to come here! I didn't want anyone to get hurt – _this isn't what I wanted!_ I'm so sorry, Raido, I never wanted this!"

Raido's heart rate began to slow from its hummingbird-like pace as it finally healed up. The kunoichi moved one hand to his left flank to encourage the kidney there to secrete erythropoietin while the other hand hovered over his sternum to promote haematopoiesis.

"I never wanted you to get hurt," Kana sobbed, eyes opening so she could look at his stilled face, "I never wanted you to get hurt, Raido – please, _believe me_! I love you – I love you, Raido! I love you, and I'm scared – I came home, and I'm so scared because I don't know what's going to happen anymore."

His eyes stayed shut, and his bloody mouth hung open as he struggled to breathe while Yuki cleared his newly-formed lungs of the blood that pooled within them. Kana shifted again so that one hand helped his heart beat and the other pushed back his forehead protector so healing chakra could be applied to the gash in his head.

"Rai.. Raido, please – _please_ – don't _die_. I need you – I'm scared, and alone, and I need you so _fucking_ bad!" Tears dripped from her lashes to trickle down his scarred cheek, "Please, Raido, I'm sorry! I love you so much – don't leave me – don't make me live without you!"

Kana's shoulders heaved with her weeping as she cried; her lips were numb by contrast to her sore eyes that continued to pour tears down both of their faces.

"Dammit, Raido, _OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT ME!_ _ **PLEASE**_ _!_ "

There was a soft groan, almost too soft to be audible, before dark lashes fluttered open. Familiar brown eyes stared upwards at the open sky for a few long moments as he struggled to gain his bearings. Eventually, though, they drifted over to peer up at Kana's face, brow knitting either from pain or confusion. With a grimace Raido slowly raised his uninjured arm so that the back of his hand rested on her shoulder, pausing to catch his breath from the exertion required to do so, before continuing to reach up to hook the very tips of his fingers under the edge of the black mask that covered her face.

Kana helped him remove the mask so that it bunched around her neck. Her body continued to buck in time in time with each of her heavy sobs as her own hand left his forehead to hold the hand that cradled her face, pressing it harder into her cheek and turning just enough to kiss the edge of his palm.

 _'Master!'_

Yuki's warning came only a beat after she detected the all-too familiar chakra signature.

Kana gripped Kioku and spin-jumped into a standing position just in time to cut through a paper chakram, using the Rinne Sharingan to pull its severed halves into the Kamui before it could crash into anyone.

"Traitor."

Konan's eyes were cold as she stared down from where she was standing atop one of the perforated rooftops, white paper sheets floating about her form. They no longer harbored the subtle compassion and warmth that they held in the Akatsuki hideout, where they glittered with excitement when she presented Kana with the outfit she had designed for her. There was no anger, or resentment, in the way she gazed down at the kunoichi still standing in the street. There was nothing but a steely emptiness.

"Your people sold you to Madara years before you could even walk. You were raised like a pig to slaughter. You mean to tell me that you believe that this village is worth protecting?" she asked calmly, unmoving from where she stood.

Kana's frown deepened from behind her mask, "The sins of one insane man does not mean that the rest of the village is worthy of death!" she took a step forward, "Konan, this is my home! These are my people! How can you expect me to sit by and let you take them away?!"

"The Great Shinobi Villages have only continued to destroy smaller nations by using them as battlegrounds," she responded coolly, "Even by dividing the jinchuriki amongst other lands, there has never been true balance and they continue to wage war with one another in an endless loop of pain and suffering. Those who have not experienced true pain can ever maintain peace - today is the day for Konoha to be held responsible for its sins."

Konan took a step forward, and the Leaf-nin nimbly jumped in her direction to shield Raido and Aoba, who stood with a kunai raised.

"I see now that you were never truly one of us," three paper clones appeared in a flurry of white sheets as she spoke, "You, like your kage, are only a contributor to the venom that cripples humanity."

She threw out her arm, and a number of paper shuriken flew in their direction just as the clones rushed in on Kana's position. It wasn't until the first flew by her face, where the distinct scent of burning paper filled her senses, that the kunoichi realized that they were paper bombs.

Kana dropped to the ground, yanking Aoba down with her, and nicked her thumb back open with her claw ring so smear blood over her hand. The black shields only appeared just in time to protect them from the eleven explosions that went off in succession around their ears.

Yuki sprang to her feet once the shield was gone and formed a series of hand seals to fling chakra senbon at the first clone, who rushed in to meet her head-on.

Shit. They were suicide bombers.

With her left eye, Kana pulled Yuki back towards her and used the right to suck all five of them into Kamui. She wasn't fast enough, however, and Aoba released a cry of pain when the entirety of his left calf was blown away by the Konan bomb-clone.

Raido grunted his discomfort when he dropped onto the metal platform, eyes questioning as he looked up at Kana before noticing the conditions of the two other injured Leaf-nin. Yuki's hands were already glowing white before her master had the chance to give her the order to tend to Aoba's wound.

"That woman –"

"She's the Akatsuki's second-in-command," she answered, cutting Raido off, "Look, I have to leave you here until I can take care of her, but…" Kana twisted so that she could make eye contact with both of the injured tokujos, "If I die… You'll be trapped."

Aoba's paling face blanched even further. Yuki's glowing eyes flashed. Raido's jaw flexed as he grit his teeth.

There was a silence as Kana waited for their response; she wouldn't just abandon them here if they wanted to take the risk in the outside - it wouldn't be fair to make that kind of decision for them.

"Go."

Weathered Anbu boots were touching down on a large chunk of rubble just a beat after the word left Raido's lips. They had only been gone for a minute, maybe less than that, but Konan was nowhere to be seen when Kana brought herself out of the Kamui dimension.

With Kioku still in hand, she leaped over a pile of wood and rock and sprinted down the road. Three clones appeared to run in three other directions in search of the other Pains and Konan; surely they didn't retreat. It would make no sense – Konohagakure was on its knees before the leader of the Akatsuki, with most of its buildings in shambles and its military force dead or incapacitated. If they were here to destroy the Leaf then they should be pressing forward to completely decimate what was left with a final push; the Akatsuki didn't bother with intimidation.

Up ahead there were two groups of shinobi: one chunin, two tokubetsu jonin, a jonin, and four Anbu. They were running away from Kana so she applied enough chakra to her feet to catch up while calling out to the only shinobi she recognized in the group.

Neji's cousin slid to a stop, dust and debris flying up around his ankles as he did so, and turned around with wide, startled white eyes, "Kana?"

"Where are the other Akatsuki mem -?" She was cut off by the Anbu team launching themselves forward, katanas out and at the ready. If Kana wasn't already in a battle-ready state of mind then she would have been sliced to pieces; thankfully she was able to use her left eye to apply enough pressure to bounce them back a couple of feet.

The other shinobi slipped into defensive positions and pulled out kunai.

"I don't have the Kurogan anymore," she explained, "Tell me, where are the Akatsuki right now?"

Still appearing to be somewhat startled at the change in events, Tokuma activated his Byakugan to survey the village; his confusion only seemed to grow as the seconds ticked by.

"One has been defeated, there are beasts scattered throughout the village…" his surprise carried in his voice as he spoke, "One just appears to be floating in the air, and the others are still fighting… No, one is retreating. She's almost out of the village."

Floating in the air?

"You idiot! Don't tell her where her _comrades_ are!" The jonin smacked Tokuma on the back of the head hard enough for him to flinch.

Kana ignored him as her mind worked. There were seven paths to the Six Paths Technique. One had to already be outside of the village if he was controlling the six bodies with Gedo, and three of the paths weren't offensive. That meant that there were most likely only two Paths doing any fighting, as well as Konan.

"The one that's dead, what does he look like?" she asked, turning her face up to the sky to try to locate the one in the air; if he was floating then he was probably the Tendo path user and was using the push of the Rinnegan to keep himself up in the sky.

Having learned his lesson, Tokuma kept his mouth shut and didn't answer.

Dammit.

However, he did suddenly gasp and knit his brow.

"They're gone."

All eyes turned onto the Hyuga, whose white eyes flitted around as he scanned the village.

"What do you mean they're gone?!" the Anbu with a bird-like mask asked incredulously.

Tokuma deactivated his Byakugan to meet the narrowed gazes of his comrades, "They just vanished into thin air – the beasts, too."

If one was floating in the air, and another was leaving right before the others vanished…

Kana's stomach dropped and she quickly pulled Yuki out of her Kamui while forming hand seals, jumping away from the shinobi that tried to lunge at her in what she assumed was an attempt to stop her from performing any jutsu. "Yuki, merge your dojutsu and get me the location of every person left in the village, _now_!" she ordered while dodging a katana.

"Captain Yokai!"

"Captain Tsuki!"

Two Anbu and four Root members jumped down from the rooftops, including Torune and Tsuchinoe.

"Shigure and Saki told us what happened," one of the Anbu, Kyoko, explained, "Is it true? Are you here to help us?"

There was no time to explain what was going on with her status. Kana looked down at Yuki to lock eyes with her, who immediately pushed her vision forward for her master to see. After the icy, dizzying sensation of being forced to see the entirety of the village passed, she felt her frown deepen when she realized it wasn't enough; there were too many seals and clustered shinobi in the village that made it too difficult for Kana to see every living being.

But the Animal Path already summoned the other Pains, and Konan, out of the village, which meant that she didn't have time to think over her options. Kana also didn't have the chakra capabilities to shield all of Konoha from the impending explosion; would she be able to create a barrier around the Tendo to compartmentalize the blast?

No, she doubted it. The epicenter of the attack would be the strongest and would most likely shatter the chakra barrier immediately.

"Tokuma, look at the child!"

Whether or not he looked reflexively, to see who she was talking about, or he decided that he could trust the kunoichi was irrelevant. As soon as he looked in Yuki's direction she was already settling a part of her consciousness over the forefront of his mind so that she could see what he was seeing.

Thanks to the psychological link they had with the Ishikigan the student didn't need her master's instruction, and was already carefully layering their visions together. Tokuma was regarded as the Hyuga with the most efficient and powerful Byakugan in the clan so, in theory, this would allow Kana to see every last detail with the two dojutsu essentially merging into one vision.

 _'Let me take over, Tokuma,'_ she said calmly, _'I need to use your eyes to –'_

 _'I know. I can hear your thoughts.'_

Good. Less time for explanation.

"They're going to try to blow up the village," Kana explained to the others while making a second attempt to form the hand seals that were interrupted earlier, "I'm going to shield as many people as I can, but I need you all to get close so I don't have to use more chakra than necessary."

There was a moment's pause as the ones unfamiliar with her struggled with the concept of a known rogue shinobi working back in the favor of her home village but, once the others obeyed her command and crouched by her side, didn't take too long to huddle in.

It looked like Tsunade was already running through the village towards the Deva Path, who was gathering an immense amount of chakra in preparation for the large-scale version of the technique. Her summon, Katsuyu, was already working to protect the villagers, as well, by having her miniature selves latch onto them and absorb them into her form. It would shield their bodies from attack while simultaneously healing them with what looked like Tsunade's chakra, but it wouldn't be enough on its own.

Kana finished performing the seals and placed both of her hands onto the ground.

If she placed the shields just outside of Katsuyu's bodies, it would act as a primary defense for the shinobi buried within – even if her shields fizzled out them maybe the slug would be enough to stop what got through.

Almost as soon as she began building the barriers sweat started to form on her brow from the exertion of the task; had Kana been willing to spare the energy then she would have sworn. Nearly an hour of using medical ninjutsu, as well as a large-scale variant of her Chakra Barrier Prison Jutsu and Iron Maiden Jutsu, after being trapped in a chakra-draining cell had left her considerably weakened.

A barrier around Shikamaru Nara, a barrier around Team Guy, one around Ibiki, one around the Akimichi kid…

Kakashi's corpse was lying not twenty feet from Chozo.

Kana almost released the jutsu right then and there.

No, no, no, nonono, _nononononono_.

He couldn't be dead. He was the one that convinced her to come home! He couldn't be dead – he wasn't _allowed_ to die!

Hot tears sprang to the kunoichi's eyes as a tidal wave of rage washed over her.

Pain did this.

 _Pain killed Kakashi._

Kana had half of a mind to release the barriers and turn her focus on the man still floating in the air. She wanted to summon Kishin and fly up to him to use the Rinne Sharingan on him – they would have a battle in the sky.

She wanted to kill him.

She wanted to make him pay for every horrible thing he had done to her home, and to her loved ones.

A hoarse sound of full of rage and despair tore its way up her throat.

This wasn't _fair_.

She didn't have the chance to explain. Kakashi didn't know why she did what she did.

She had just come home – things were supposed to be _better_!

Why was this happening?!

 _'Master, please!'_

Yuki's voice cut through her thoughts like a hot knife, cutting off Kana's train of thought before she could spring away from the group that huddled around her within the barrier dome that they were encased in.

A lone tear rolled through the sweat that beaded along her cheeks, and the kunoichi had to use every ounce of willpower to force aside her feelings of agony for her best friend's death. As much as she wanted to give up, as much as she desperately wanted to turn her anger towards the Deva Pain floating in the sky, this wasn't the moment to lose oneself in grief.

Kana had a mission to complete.

The reserve seal on her back released, and the black markings swirled down her body and to the tips of her tattooed fingers as a show of the new surge of power that was immediately put into creating more barriers even as the Tendo Pain finished gathering chakra.

The cumulative gaze flitted from blue flicker to blue flicker, no longer paying attention to which exact shinobi was where, or which forms no longer had active chakra networks. There were still hundreds of shinobi inside of the village, some too injured to move or some rendered immobile by a piece of Katsuyu, and Kana was working as quickly as she could to put up as many chakra barriers as possible while Pain converted his chakra into the impending explosion.

Shit, what about the evacuees?

Kana's vision bounced over to where civilians were being led through the underground tunnels that would take them through Hokage Rock and outside of the village. The tunnels were already put under stress from the dozen or so monstrously enormous creatures rampaging through the village – something like this could destroy the integrity of the system and cause it to collapse around their ears.

Fuck.

With a groan, she pushed barriers along the walls of the tunnels that still had shinobi and civilians running through them, just like she did at Orochimaru's compound in the Land of Birds. Chakra snaked over the ceilings and across the walls to reinforce the structure before Kana pulled her enhanced vision to the ground's surface.

Even though just about everyone had been evacuated, it meant that Kana was maintaining nearly a mile of barriers while creating more to wrap around the hundreds of ninja that Katsuyu absorbed. Sweat dripped down from her face to mix in with the dirt, and made her clothing cling to every inch of her skin as the exertion began to reach a monumental peak.

"Not… Not enough chakra," she panted, "Too many… Can't…"

Yuki placed her palm on her master's cheek and a steady stream of chakra began to flow into Kana's body. It helped, but the child was already running on fumes herself, and didn't have much to spare.

"Take some of mine, too," Tokuma reached forward to place his hand over hers, "Take as much as you need."

The purple hue to Torune's skin soon turned into a normal shade of beige as he ordered his unique beetles to recede back into his body before he mirrored the Hyuga's actions by touching her other hand. "My insects absorbed a fair amount from one of the creatures," he explained, "I have some to spare, as well."

More hands grabbed onto what flesh Kana had exposed as a pained moan passed through her lips.

"Captain, you can do this."

"Just a little more!"

She absorbed what chakra she could, filtering it through her body and expelling it into the form of her clan's black chakra, but the stress it was putting on her body was becoming too much to bear. Kana felt as if her skull was being ripped in half, and blood began to drip down her nose as testament to the intense pain that tore its way through her body.

Even still, the chakra coming from her comrades was enough for her to push out the final barriers in time for Pain's glow to expand. It was only a second later that the Shinra Tensei blasted through what was left of the village like grenade the size of the moon.

The barriers wavered.

Yuki buried her face into her master's neck fearfully.

Fuck it all if she didn't keep her safe.

Kana pushed some of the last of her chakra into the barriers, blood trickling out of her ears and nose in time with the excruciating pain becoming blinding.

Dust and rubble rushed past them.

These were her people – her comrades and brothers and sisters.

Buildings collapsed into nothingness.

These were the people that made Kana fight.

The ground around them sunk.

This was her nindo, her ninja way – to protect these people, and her home.

The sheer force of the blast, and some particularly large chunks of rubble, pushed several of the barriers back, and Kana pushed the very last of her chakra into them to keep them grounded. She fell forward with a hoarse sound that ripped its way through her throat, both too loud and muffled in her own ears. Someone caught her, she wasn't entirely sure who, and kept her upright enough to maintain her contact with the ground.

Then… It was over.

Silence hung in the air with the thick clouds of dust.

Whoever was holding her was trying to say something. It was too muffled to get past the ringing in Kana's ears. Her eyes drifted to the side to make sure that Yuki was okay, fully aware of the harsh effects of using both dojutsu for too long – she was sweating and was furrowing her brow against the discomfort but didn't appear to be too worse for wear.

That was good.

Sapping just a little more chakra from the person holding her – Tokuma, if the familiar scent of jasmine was of any hint – Kana used her right eye to expel the three injured tokubetsu jonin from her Kamui.

Her vision continued to flicker from black and white to normal vision as the pain splitting her skull open began to be accompanied by a familiar warm liquid trickling down her cheeks. When Kana lifted a hand to wipe it away, there was enough blood running down her face to smear over her fingers and drip down to the ground.

Another wave of blinding pain crashed into the kunoichi and she dropped completely into Tokuma with a moan. Her vision blurred into a bizarre, nauseating amalgamation of expansive 360 degrees of white and black, as well as colored short-range as if the dojutsu abilities were all warring with one another for control.

Kana didn't notice the scream of lightning tearing through the air.

The ones who did noticed too late.

The last thing she saw was a flash of blue.

Yuki screamed.


	26. Chapter 26

_Kana sighed, mismatched eyes sliding shut as the man behind her tightened his hold around her._

 _"Kisame, I need to go."_

 _He didn't answer and, instead, slid a leg between hers with an irritated grunt as if trying to somehow meld their bodies together._

 _For some reason Pain assigned them to bounties in the same village in the Land of Tea and, when they sensed one another, it didn't take them long enough to track each other down. They talked about Itachi for a bit, and how Kisame hated Sasuke for killing him, and how Yuki was advancing in her training now that they had the chance to sit down and properly work on polishing her skills._

 _He didn't care for what he called the "New alien look" but Kana was pretty sure it was mostly because he didn't like the idea of someone splicing her genes again._

 _"Kisame…" she breathed, relishing in the way his breath felt on the back of her head._

 _"They're only going to kill you," Kisame's voice was thick as he grumbled, "I don't understand why you want to go back after everything they **did** , knowing they will just off you."_

 _They ended up checking in to a motel together for the night. Yuki was allowed her own separate room under the guise of her privacy, though the kunoichi was pretty sure that she knew what they were up to once the keening started._

 _Kana's hand drifted upwards and back to slide her palm over the rough blue skin of his cheek; she could feel the light scar tissue from the gill-like tattoos on his cheekbone._

 _"They might not. The Leaf is very forgiving, you know that."_

 _It was a lie – they both knew it was. Taking in a shinobi from another village that caused them problems was one thing, but she had deserted the village to join a terrorist organization that was hell bent on basically enslaving humanity. There would be no forgiveness for Kana._

 _The Kiri-nin grunted again in disapproval._

 _"You want to die that badly, huh?"_

 _She smiled sadly and it was her turn not to answer as she twisted around in Kisame's arms so that her chest was pressed against his. He smelled like ginger and sex, somehow a relaxing scent that allowed her muscles to ease just barely enough for Kana to feel it._

 _"I want you to stay alive, little bird," he muttered with his lips pressed against her forehead, "I told you. I'd be sad if you died."_

 _"I told you, I'm_ _ **not**_ _gonna_ _ **die**_ _," Kana managed to wriggle her arm up between them so that she could roughly twist a dark blue nipple, snickering when he swore and smacked her across the head in response._

 _Kisame rolled them over so that he was hovering over her, weight braced on his forearms, and leaned his head down so that his mouth grazed the rings of little white scars that circled Kana's shoulder. "Then you're not allowed to forget me."_

 _The same sad smile from earlier replaced her weak playful grin, and she brought a hand up to lightly trace the shapes and curves of his heavily muscled shoulders and back. "Of course I won't forget you," Kana whispered. Whether she liked it or not, Kisame had managed to barrel his way into her heart as one of her precious people - a friend that she was nothing short of thankful for.  
_

 _The Mist shinobi grumbled something inaudible into her shoulder before wrapping his teeth around the curve and biting down. Impossibly sharp teeth sank into her flesh with a familiar stinging sensation, but this time Kana didn't squirm away or hiss at the pain like the first time he did this. The hand on Kisame's shoulder slid up his neck and over his ear to cup his cheek like earlier, feeling the muscle over his jaw twitch when he flexed enough for her to feel his teeth move in the wounds they had created._

 _She turned her head so that her mouth rested in his spiky blue hair, "I'll tell you what… When this is all over, I'll come find you," Kana released the breath she hadn't even realized she was holding, "We can go to the Land of Water, if you want, or the Land of Flowers."_

 _Kisame pulled away from her shoulder with a noisy slurp, "You loved that stupid backwater country."_

 _"It was pretty. And smelled nice."_

 _He flicked his tongue over one of the bleeding wounds, "It was okay."_

 _Kana's hand drifted up to idly massage his scalp, "So, what do you say?"_

 _"What about the girl, or your Leaf boyfriend?" he asked nonchalantly, as if he were asking what was for breakfast as he lapped at the thin streams of blood that oozed out of her shoulder._

 _The kunoichi hummed disapprovingly, "Raido tried to **kill** me the day he chased us down with that retrieval team." Her heart ached at the thought._

 _Kisame leaned back enough to roll her onto her stomach so he could tend to the wounds on her back, "The girl?"_

 _"I told you. She's my responsibility," she sighed, frown deepening._

 _Kana could feel the man's lips stretch into his trademark smirk against the puncture wound he nursed with his mouth, "I suppose that wouldn't be so bad," he muttered, tongue sliding along the bottom of the curve, "'S not like the world would have a use for people like us, anyways. It would make sense that we stick together."_

 _The hand that was settled on her bare hip slid upwards over the sheets to cover the one she had resting under the pillow, squeezing firmly for a brief moment._

 _"Then it's a plan," she whispered against the tears that threatened to emerge, "When it's all over, I'll come find you, and we'll raise Yuki together… Where no one will ever find us…" Kana locked her friend's fingers with hers to squeeze back._

 _Kisame traced the outline of one of the bleeding dashes with the very tip of his tongue, "And you won't forget me."_

 _A lone tear managed to roll down the inner corner of Kana's face to sink into the fabric of the pillow._

 _"Never."_

* * *

When the kunoichi finally came to, it was dark out and there was someone in the room with her.

Her eyes fluttered open after a few minutes of struggling with collecting her bearings. There was a burning ache in her chest and her entire body just felt… _Strange_ … But, for the most part, it seemed as if Kana was generally uninjured.

With a couple more moments of her eyes darting around her field of vision, which primarily was composed of the ceiling and parts of the walls, she could see that she was in a hospital. As if the heart monitor and metallic tang of machine-fed oxygen weren't dead giveaways.

Kana turned her head to the person sitting next to her bed, noting the cuff around her wrist with what looked liked fuinjutsu markings, "Commander…"

He didn't move other than the slight tilt of his head, "You've been asleep for quite some time," he said coolly, "Three weeks, to be precise. Lady Hokage concluded that your prolonged unconsciousness was psychosomatic."

In other words, her brain had shut down and closed in on itself rather than properly cope with emotional trauma. There was a fair amount of drugs circulating through her system and suppressing both her emotions and ability to move, which probably was why Kana felt so numb even as memories began to rush back.

Konoha reduced to nothingness, just an empty crater with only a thin ring of the village border remaining. Hundreds of dead shinobi. Kakashi lying dead amongst the rubble…

She screwed her eyes shut as if it would block out the visions, "I failed…"

"Your mission was to prolong Itachi Uchiha's life, not single-handedly fend off the Akatsuki," Commander Hiketsu explained calmly.

Yeah, but Kana doubted that the mission details allowed for allowing his little brother to cause the heart attack that would claim his life not moments later… The Amaterasu… She couldn't get through – Itachi had purposefully thrown it up so that he couldn't be healed in time… She _wanted_ to – she _tried_ – she _couldn't_ –

And then, as if to mock her inability to protect her loved ones, the Akatsuki came to her home and obliterated it after murdering one of her most precious people. There was so much blood – so much destruction – so many cries of pain as the men and women of the Hidden Leaf struggled to cling to their lives -

Against the suppressing effects of the antidepressant that her body was trying to filter away, the heart monitor picked up its pace.

"I understand that you are distressed," the man reached out to touch her shoulder, "But you need to hold yourself together until your heart heals some more."

Kana's senses immediately narrowed to the point that they were connected; she had never seen him touch anyone when it wasn't absolutely necessary for their survival. Despite that, this was the second time he had reached out to her in a comforting manner, with the first time being in the forest the night they fought.

"My heart?" she murmured, remembering the pain in her chest.

That's right, the last thing the kunoichi remembered was something blue cutting through her chest. Lightning? Kana's brow furrowed, "Wait… How did I get here?"

Commander Hiketsu folded his arms over his chest and tilted his head down, presumably to stare at the floor, "It makes sense that you can't recall the events that brought you here…" he sighed heavily, and she noted how his shoulders almost sagged. It was a shocking reversal from the normally calm and powerful demeanor that the Anbu Commander constantly exuded, and she couldn't help but find herself worried for his wellbeing.

"There were three retrieval squads dispatched by Lady Hokage to pursue both of the Uchiha brothers upon news of their upcoming battle – one for each Uchiha, and a team of Anbu dispatched to locate you. All three failed in their missions but, after Pain destroyed the village, one of the surviving Anbu from the retrieval team recognized you and, under the impression you were an enemy, used a lightning-based kenjutsu technique to destroy most of your chest."

He shifted in his chair and lifted his head back to meet Kana's gaze, "The child that accompanied you somehow was able to use your clan's healing kekkei tota to keep you alive long enough for you to be carried back to the hospital, where you underwent surgery. Two weeks have passed since you were removed from the ICU and properly admitted."

So, it seemed that not the entire Anbu force was on her side. Kana expected as much – most of the Anbu that knew seemed to be in the divisions she was formerly in charge of, and most didn't chat to members of other sections of the force; it made sense that the shinobi's first instinct would be to take her out.

She pushed the thought aside as another popped up, "Pain, and Konan, what happened to them?"

"As incredulous as it might sound, Naruto Uzumaki appeared just moments after the explosion and was able to defeat Pain."

The Nine Tails? Kana thought back to the last time they spoke, in the forest where she tossed him around like a ragdoll and fought Asuma's squad. She told him then that he wasn't worthy of becoming Hokage – that he didn't deserve to be heralded as the village's greatest shinobi.

Could that foolish, wet behind the ears teenaged genin really be so powerful that he took down the leader of the Akatsuki? He really defeated someone that held the full power of the _Rinnegan_?

Was she _wrong_ about him?

Probably… Kana was wrong about everything else, it seemed.

"You said that they were retrieval squads… I know I was only kept alive for questioning … Are they going to execute me when it's over?" she asked in a quiet voice. Assuming that Tsunade hadn't been informed of what exactly led to the Uchiha's downfall and, subsequently, her own abandonment of the Hidden Leaf, the plan was that they were going to be brought in for interrogation before facing capital punishment.

Commander Hiketsu's sagging shoulders stiffened at her question, answering it wordlessly.

"That's alright," she murmured while turning her head up to the ceiling, "A shitty way to go out, but that's alright. I just… I need you to answer something for me."

There was a short pause where the room was filled with a heavy silence before the commander's hand slid away from her shoulder, "I can't guarantee that I will be able to."

"The girl that was with me, where is she now?"

"Returned to the Shimi Clan," the Anbu Commander answered quietly, "I believe she is to be enrolled in the academy at the start of the next semester."

Good… That was good. The shinobi force could use someone like her. Not only that but, with the rest of the village being aware of the child, there was no risk that she would be discarded again. Kana looked back to her superior officer as her eyelids began to grow heavy.

"Commander?" she smiled sadly and felt her eyes slid shut when he hummed in acknowledgement, "Thank you for bringing me home… If only for a little bit."

* * *

The following week passed by in a haze. Nurses with Anbu escorts came in every few hours to check run diagnostics and go through standard routines, and there were a few times where Kana could hear the guards outside her door talking in hushed voices. It wasn't long before she figured out their schedules – every morning at 0600 sharp the two guards standing outside her door would change out for the shift that ran from 0600 to 1200. Then, those guards would be relieved for another pair that would stand in the hall to continue the six hour rotations.

Kana didn't quite understand the guard schedule outside of the building, though. There were Anbu, both standard and Root, that would sit outside of her window in the trees. They came randomly, some staying for three hours and others staying for nearly ten, and there didn't seem to be much of a system to it. She had noticed them on the third night after finally waking up – Lord Danzo was dead, killed by Sasuke, according to the Anbu that whispered outside of her door, so who was assigning them to keep watch?

There was something else that was a monumental bother, though, and that was the bizarre way her body felt. The first night she had woken up she had just written it off as an aftereffect of the drugs that were being funneled into her body but, the more Kana thought about it, the more it felt like something was wrong.

"Lady Tsunade, may I ask you a question?"

The Hokage looked up from the chart she was writing on with a skeptical expression - it made sense, considering that this was the first time the kunoichi had spoken since arriving to the hospital. She finished a line and clipped the pencil into the board's clip, "I suppose."

Kana bit her lip and looked down at her lap where her hands would be resting if they weren't bound to the bed rails by those accursed restraints, "You have me on Seroquel and Duloxetine to keep me docile… The nurses were talking about it when they thought I was asleep," she murmured, "But… I don't remember either of them affecting chakra. Is my chart correct?"

With a raised eyebrow Tsunade looked back down and lifted up a page to scan its contents, "Well, there isn't a mistake in your chart…," she dropped the page to nod at the restraints, "However, that sealing jutsu was designed to suppress chakra so you can't make an _escape_."

She frowned and looked over to her bound ankles, "It… It isn't the suppression I'm talking about… My chakra… It feels… It feels _different_. It feels _fast_ , and _jagged_ … When it normally feels like a fiery river – smooth and comforting…" Kana trailed off when she realized that she was probably not making any sense.

It felt like she was put into the wrong body, and it just felt _wrong_.

"Hm… Well, in that case, I'll try to look into it for you."

"No…," Kana shook her head before leaning back into the raised back of the hospital bed and looking out the window, "It won't matter, in the end. Thank you, though."

Tsunade gave a disinterested hum and hooked the chart on the foot of the hospital bed before walking towards the door. When she turned the doorknob, though, she could feel the Hokage hesitate and turn back.

"You know… You shook up my men pretty badly," she said with a tone that sounded like what a mother would use when scolding her child. Tsunade waited a few moments for a response and, when Kana remained silent, she sighed and stepped out of the room.

* * *

Kana took another carefully measured breath, counting to three before very slowly releasing it. Her back was beginning to lose its straight posture as her muscles continued to ache. Meditation helped for the first few days, and there even seemed to be an improvement from the medication being filtered out, but Kana was becoming wearier as she spent more time in the cell.

Seven days of waiting there left Kana feeling nauseous and in pain, made only worse by the oppressive silence that made her ears ring in their desperation to hear something. The Anbu guarding her cell were speechless in their shifts and stood stock-still so that there wasn't even the sound of fabric rustling to work as a reprieve. It was so quiet that even Kana found herself motionless, as if any little sound would be like an explosion to her parched ears.

So when it came time for the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force to arrive, led by both the Jonin and Anbu Commanders, the Akatsuki member found herself momentarily stunned by the onslaught of noises accompanying them.

"I'm going to skip the formalities, given the situation," Ibiki said gruffly, low voice resonating off of the cold stony walls, "So we're going to jump right into things. State your name, age and occupation for the record."

Kana didn't move from where she was sitting with her legs folded under her body while the group shifted around her.

"My name is Kana Shimi, of the Shimi Clan. I am twenty-two years old. I am an intelligence gatherer for the Akatsuki, formerly a jonin-ranked Captain of Konohagakure's Root division of the Anbu Black Ops."

Next to Ibiki, Tonbo jotted down her response into the necessary fields on whatever form was attached to his clipboard. She always wondered how he was able to see so well with the bandages over his eyes like that.

"Elaborate on what kind of intelligence you acquired for the Akatsuki."

"At first, it was primarily information on bounties," Kana explained matter-of-factly, "I would steal floor plans, security and any information I could on them as a person," she closed her eyes, "After the first year, I was entrusted with stealing intelligence on villages. Security protocols, village layout, military strength, so on. It was also my duty to provide recorded information on jinchuriki, such as their abilities as a shinobi and their whereabouts."

It sounded strange to hear herself openly talk about what she did for the organization – it was something that was always implied in conversations but never outright said. As the words left Kana's mouth, though, it honestly didn't sound too far off from any intelligence gathering mission she had taken on during her time in Anbu.

Ibiki clearly didn't share her sentiment, however, as his gaze darkened with every syllable she spoke. "And I assume that it is safe to say that your assignments were extended to the Hidden Leaf?"

There was a restrained anger in his voice, probably only kept in check by the three officers that outranked him by a mile. When Kana answered his question honestly, she could almost feel the palpable rage emanate off of his body.

"If you were so ready to betray your village, why did you give yourself up to the Anbu unit patrolling the forest?" Inoichi asked, genuine curiosity seeping into his stony demeanor.

She bit her lip behind her cloth mask. Before she could find a way to answer his question, however, two very distinct voices rang out in the prison's hall.

"Why the hell are we carrying chairs to the prison?" the first voice was clearly irritated as he spoke, "Doesn't Yamanaka have his _own_ lackeys to do this for him?!"

The other voice sounded only slightly less annoyed when he responded with, "Yeah, but it's almost better down here than it is in that stuffy office. The hag is in a shit mood. I'm not complaining to get away from her for a little while."

Those voices…

"Still, it's hot as balls outside – my balls are _literally_ hot as fuck. Doesn't she realize it's _summer_!?"

Kana knew them.

With stacks of three chairs in their arms, Kotetsu and Izumo stepped in view of the prison cell with matching expressions of heat-induced agitation. The exertion that came with having to carry the chairs showed in the perspiration that beaded on their upper lips and foreheads, which were tense with concentration.

Their irritation seemed to quickly dissipate, however, when the saw the kneeling figure in the center of the jail cell.

For several long moments silence hung in the air as the three stared at each other with varying expressions of shock. Surprise hit Kana the hardest when she realized that, as the moments stretched into minutes, their expressions never morphed into the intense anger they wore during their meeting in the forest. Instead, they only looked as if they had a million questions running through their heads.

"Y-you…" The kunoichi struggled to form words as her hands began to tremble in her lap, "You're…"

Izumo slowly set down the chairs in his arms so he could fully face the cell as more emotions flickered across his face. It wasn't until a familiar burning sensation pricked at the corners of her eyes that Kana realized that the reason his figure was blurring was because tears began to brim.

"You're _alive_."

Tattooed hands came up to cover her mouth to muffle the strangled sob of relief that forced its way past her lips. Kotetsu and Izumo were _alive_. They hadn't been killed when Hidan and Kakuzu ended Asuma's life. She was wrong. They got away. Two of her precious people were alive, and standing right in front of her with their eyes locked on her own.

Understanding flashed across their faces when Kana whispered those two words, as well as a profound sadness when they were reminded of their former squad leader's death.

"Yeah," Kotetsu said softly, stepping up to the bars, "They didn't get us."

Hearing him speak to her tipped her over the edge. Kana's fingers pressed into her mouth first as if it could stop the chain of choked sobs of relief that bubbled up her throat; warm tears spilled over to run down her cheeks and into the mask that still covered her face.

"I think you've got your answer, Inoichi," she heard Shikaku mutter to her left.

"You really expect me to believe that a member of the Akatsuki is defecting _back_ to her village?" Ibiki growled.

In perfect sync, Izumo's and Kotetsu's expressions changed back to what could only be described as a hopeful surprise.

"You came back?" The slighter of the two asked, voice quiet and expectant.

Kana could only sob harder into her palms.

"This is above your clearance," the Anbu Commander motioned for the guards at the door to unlock the cell so that they could get their chairs, "You are dismissed."

It took a bit of convincing, which was mostly just Izumo tugging on his lover's flak jacket, but Kotetsu eventually turned away from the bars to slowly walk away, both of them stealing glances over their shoulders until they were forced to round a corner.

Kana found herself wishing for her old eyes, for the Kurogan that would allow her to see through walls and watch her friends walk through the winding halls of the maximum security prison. Thinking they were dead for so long left her longing for more interaction with the chunin – she needed more time with them. Having them taken away so quickly, knowing that this could very well be the last time she'd ever see them, was agonizing. There were so many things she wanted to say to them, so many stories and explanations for everything that happened in the last three years.

But, first…

"I'll tell you everything you want about the Akatsuki," she said quietly, voice barely louder than a whisper as she only barely managed to keep her weeping at bay by fiercely gnawing on her lip, "But only if you let me see my loved ones one last time."

Commander Hiketsu stepped in front of her to grab her bound wrists, pulling them upwards and raising his left hand for the appropriate seal. When the fuinjutsu was released he inserted a key into the cuffs and twisted so that her hands flopped back into her lap.

Leaning back into his seat, Shikaku folded his arms over his broad chest and narrowed his eyes, " _Before_ that, I wanna know why you left in the _first place_ ," he cocked his head to the side, "I wanna know what prompted an _Anbu Captain_ to desert the village, if she was just gonna come back nearly three years later."

The taste of blood sprang into Kana's mouth when she bit her lip just a little too hard.

"Lord Danzo is dead, Tsuki," the Anbu Commander reminded her matter-of-factly, sensing her hesitation, "You are no longer under his control."

She tilted her head back to peer up at the masked figure, whose eyes expressed a practiced calm as he gazed down at his former subordinate. The meaning of his use of her Anbu codename was not lost, and she found her relief from the news of her best friends' status being transformed into a deep sadness. Kana couldn't bring herself to maintain their eye contact so she opted to looking down at the hands in her lap.

It wasn't as if she were worried about the repercussions that could come with releasing extremely sensitive information to men that made sensitive intel their life's work. Kana knew that she was going to be killed for committing crimes against the state, or sentenced to the Blood Prison, so Danzo's wrath was the least of her concerns.

It was just… Talking about it – openly discussing everything – was going to dredge up the same feelings that Kana had been working so hard to suppress.

What did it matter if they knew the truth? She wasn't a victim – she was an aggressor. Kana actively worked to support Obito's vision. Danzo was just one of the many factors that pushed her in that direction. It wouldn't change anything. If it did, it would just mean that Lady Tsunade would be made aware of the underhanded shit that he did in the shadows.

Her eyes slid shut. If she didn't tell them, though, then she'd either be viciously tortured by Ibiki, who would be only interested in punishing her for her crimes against the village before their judicial system could. If she wasn't tortured then Inoichi would just use his team to extract the information from her mind with the Psycho Mind Transmission Jutsu.

A thought occurred to her while the shinobi dragged chairs around in a semi-circle. Maybe, if she told their story, Itachi's name could be cleared. If she explained everything that lead up to the Uchiha massacre, would it reverse the damage that had been done to his memory?

Kana looked up at the men that were waiting with varying expressions of curiosity and confusion.

"Alright…" the hands in her lap tightly fisted the fabric of her jacket sleeves, "But it's not just my story that you're gonna hear."

* * *

The trial process moved in a blur. The Torture and Interrogation Force, as well as both shinobi Commanders, left with little questions the day Kana explained everything that had happened over the last decade. They left her in that same agonizingly silent cell for another eight days while they presumably deliberated the recently acquired information with Lady Tsunade; food and water were provided but it did nothing to ease the constant nausea that plagued Kana from the chakra absorption seal.

When they returned to slap her in chakra suppressing cuffs and march her to Hokage Tower, a full four-man Anbu squad in tow, the kunoichi honestly had no idea what to expect. No one said a word to her about what was happening with the village's council before yanking her to her feet and dragging her towards the ninja academy.

Lady Tsunade sat behind her desk, dressed in the traditional Hokage robes, with both remaining members of the Konoha Council standing on either side of her. Each corner of the room had Anbu stationed in them, and two units stood at her shoulders.

"Kana Shimi of the Shimi Clan, how do you plead?"

There was a lot of talking.

The kunoichi looked Tsunade dead in the eye, "Guilty."

Most of it was reiterating what was already included in the final report submitted by Inoichi Yamanaka and Commander Hiketsu, some of it was the pair covering just how mentally taxing they believed it was to be torn away from their home to help their best friend die a little slower.

They discussed Kana's mental health. They called her affiliation with the Akatsuki a "Temporary psychological break directly caused by insurmountable mental and emotional stress," as if that made her betrayal any less inexcusable.

The entire time, she just remained silent. She had no intention of pleading for her life, or freedom.

With the furrowing of her brow, the Hokage leaned forward and placed her elbows on her desk with her hands folded over her face, "You understand that the punishment for these crimes -"

"Is execution," Kana finished stonily, "Or lifetime imprisonment at Hozuki Castle."

Behind the desk, Koharu folded his arms over his chest and somehow managed to frown even deeper, "Then I suppose that's that."

Tsunade brought a carefully manicured hand up to her face to gnaw on her thumbnail.

Before she could deliver a verdict, however, the office door swung open to reveal a small group of shinobi, most of which Kana didn't recognize. Leading the group was Kakashi with Tatsuma and Haru in tow standing just behind them with about four shinobi from other villages. There were protests from the guards at the door who, even behind their masks, looked almost defeated as they understood that they had already fucked up on keeping people out.

"Kakashi, what the _hell_ are you doing?!" the Hokage hissed, "We're in the middle of a very important trial - whatever it is, it can wait!"

Kana's weakened heart skipped a beat.

The Anbu outside of her hospital room talked about a jutsu that had revived the village that had lost their lives in the attack but, somehow, she hadn't made the connection that the Outer Path jutsu applied to Kakashi as well. Her knees almost buckled beneath her weight at the sight.

He stepped into the room with the rest of the group solemnly, "Lady Tsunade, these shinobi have information that you need to hear before coming to a final verdict."

What the hell? What could some shinobi from other villages -

 _The Anbu._

"Milady, my name is Captain Yuri from the Village Hidden in the Stone," a tall, tanned man said as he stepped around so that he could make eye contact with Tsunade, "I lead the Third Platoon in my village's Anbu -"

Koharu scoffed and turned to narrow his eyes at the Hokage, "A Hidden Stone ninja has no business interfering with Konoha's affairs," he said chidingly, "Don't tell me you are _allowing_ this!?"

With a wave of her hand, Tsunade dismissed his protest, "Continue, Captain."

Yuri bowed his head in appreciation, "Eleven months ago, our villages joined together with the Hidden Sand to investigate the mysterious Anbu disappearances. I was one of the kidnapped shinobi who was imprisoned by Orochimaru and his subordinates for the purpose of trying to find a way to extract my explosion release kekkei genkai."

"What does this have to do with this trial? Get to the point!" Tsunade snapped, clearly impatient.

"Milady, when I heard that Captain Tsuki was gonna be put on trial for betraying tha Leaf, I went out ta find the other Anbu that were with us in Orochimaru's hideout," Haru explained.

"Upon being summoned by your ninja, I gathered a small handful of others from both the Hidden Sand and Stone to come before you and say that the woman on trial is the very one that rescued us," Yuri continued, "It was her detective work, and her skills as a shinobi, that saved _all_ of our lives."

Tsunade squinted thoughtfully, "I am already well aware of what happened so, I ask again, what does this have to do with the treason and espionage charges she is being faced with?"

There was a brief pause where it seemed no one knew what to say, as Kana's heart raced painfully against her chest, before Kakashi folded his arms and shifted his weight to his other foot, "With all due respect, Lady Hokage, you need to think back to the Uchiha -"

"Kakashi, shut up!" Kana spat angrily, "You don't know anything!"

Her hands began to shake in their cuffs as her mind struggled to find a way to stop this scenario from playing out exactly how it was. Everything had been fine - she had accepted her impending punishment; why were Kakashi and the others butting in?!

"Madara Uchiha told me everything," he said coolly, "I know about Itachi - I understand why he did what he did. You don't need to lie for him anymore."

Kana began to very, very carefully gather the minute amount of chakra that she was able to sneak past the fuinjutsu. She didn't need much, only enough to use her right eye.

An exhausted sigh escaped Tsunade's painted lips, "Kakashi, are you trying to tell me that just because of..." her eyes flitted to the Anbu, "If they have nothing else to add, get them out of here." She leaned back in her chair once the foreign shinobi and the Anbu had filed out of the room, and the door clicked shut. Turning back to Kakashi, whose expression was unreadable, the Hokage kept her voice low as she spoke, "Are you trying to tell me that, because she was initially ordered to protect Itachi Uchiha, and she was responsible for rescuing the kidnapped Anbu units, that she should be absolved of the crimes she admits to performing _willingly_? On what grounds?!"

"There were also several accounts of an Akatsuki member with white hair and strange chakra fighting against the other members," Hiketsu added calmly, "She healed the wounded and shielded the helpless – risking death by chakra depletion to save countless others."

"The reason those shinobi traveled all this way, to defend a rogue shinobi from another village, was to prove that she's still a woman that -"

Using the same Kamui technique as the one she copied from Obito, Kana used the Rinne Sharingan to put her wrists into a sort of limbo so that the cuffs phased through and clattered to the floor. The second they passed through her hands she was already gathering the now released chakra for the Flicker Technique, tearing open her left guard's kunai holster and whipping out a blade by the time the metal came in contact with the office floor with a heavy _clank_. As the other Anbu reacted to the suddenness of her movements, Kana was already pressed against a wall with the kunai angled against the guard's neck, ready to sever his jugular.

"What does it matter?!" she hissed, "Didn't you hear her?! I was a legitimate member of the Akatsuki! I fought for their cause!" The kunai shifted threateningly on the guard's jugular when the others moved to grab her, "I've killed so many people for them..."

Her eyes screwed shut against the shamed tears that stung the corners of her eyes, "I've killed so _many_ people for the Akatsuki," she repeated, "Is this what it takes? Is this what it'll take for you to finally see me for _who I am?!_ A traitor! A _murderer_!" Kana pressed the tip of the blade against his throat for effect as she ground out her words between clenched teeth, "I could do it, you know. What's one more kill? I bet I wouldn't even _feel_ anything - killing is _all I know_. He'll just be _one more_ dead body-"

"I don't know what you're trying to prove, but we - the people who know you - we know better," Kakashi moved as if to reach out to here, but Kana pierced the top layer of her hostage's skin with the knife to prompt him to stop.

"Sh-shut up," she choked out, "Just _shut up_ -"

"We know that, no matter what, you are a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. That's why you helped those people. That's why you fought against the Pains and Konan. Because your people - your brothers and sisters in arms - were always more important to you than anything else."

Against the willpower she put into preventing it, which mostly consisted of her grinding her teeth together, Kana's tears blurred her vision and spilled over, "It doesn't make anything better! It doesn't change what I _did_!"

Commander Hiketsu, who had remained silent where he was leaning against the wall up until this point, nodded in agreement and took a step in their direction, "You're right," he said sternly, "It doesn't erase the fact that you went against your orders and handed over information about the Hidden Leaf to the Akatsuki."

The grip she had on the kunai weakened at his words.

"However..." he took another step forward, "Nothing about this situation was handled correctly, on all ends, but _you_ were the one that was directly punished for _our_ misguided decisions. There are few shinobi that are strong enough to withstand what we can only imagine was insurmountable stress, and I refuse to hold you solely accountable for your actions when you're carrying so much remorse."

 _"This was out of my control."_

 _"Someone like you… Should have never been pushed into becoming a shinobi."_

"You need _help_ , Kana," Inoichi added from where he was standing next to the Hokage's desk, "You need to allow yourself to properly _grieve_ – grieve over your exile from the village, grieve the deaths of Shisui and Itachi, grieve the deaths of those two chunin you thought were dead," he tucked his hands into his pockets and softened his gaze, "If there's anything I've learned from raising my daughter, it's that nothing good come from trying to keep everything suppressed."

 _"I don't want to pretend to know what it was like to grow up and live in your shoes. But I know you've lived a tough life, that's why you took so long to finally reach out to others. I know that you still continued to keep those around you at an arm's length, bottling your feelings up …"_

 _"Sometimes I see a darkness in you that goes just beyond loneliness and depression, and I wondered if the reason you were always so ambitious and eager to go on missions is because of a self destructive edge you carry."_

 _"Your name means sadness… It's almost like a curse."_

Kakashi unfolded his arms and put his hands in his pockets, "The trick to taking a hostage, Kana, is to _not_ take someone that is precious to you," he said softly, "Unfortunately for you, your love for your comrades runs even deeper than your love for Konoha. You're not going to hurt him, so just let him go."

 _"You were always too warm… Too kind."_

The kunai clattered to the wooden floor panels noisily. Kana released the Anbu unit, sliding down the wall until she sat with her knees pressed into her chest and her arms tightly wrapped around herself, fingers digging into her skin painfully as doing so would stop her shoulders from quivering. Kana struggled to make words, to force her mouth to apologize for everything that had happened, but the only sounds that came out were abortive noises that squeezed their way up past the strangled sobs that shook her shoulders.

She flinched away from the hand Kakashi used to reach out towards her, screwing her mismatched eyes shut and turning her face away as if his flesh was coated in acid. Her body tightened even further into the ball it was in when he tentatively murmured under his breath, only just loud enough for it to meet Kana's ears.

"Let me help you, Kana. Let me care for my friend. My _comrade_."

A beat.

Trusting other people unconditionally – depending on them emotionally – was something Kana honestly couldn't remember how to do. Itachi and Kisame, for all intents and purposes, were constantly held at just a little closer than arm's length, just close enough for them to not become frustrated with her inability to truly let them in. It was why she never told Itachi about the missing Anbu, or why she didn't talk with either of them about Obito's plans, or why she handled the decision to take Yuki under her wing on her own. Kisame was an important friend to her, yes, but Kana had made a very conscious effort to only provide enough information about herself to gain his trust as a friend - she even went so far as to use his growing affection for her as a way to find comfort when she was teetering on the edge of a breakdown.

Years of _learning_ to only depend on herself, of expecting everyone to either betray her or leave her behind, left her cringing away from the same man she looked up to and respected wholeheartedly.

"I... I don't know how," she whispered through clenched teeth.

It wasn't safe. _He_ wasn't _safe_. Relying on him _wasn't_ _safe_.

Kakashi leaned in close enough for her to smell the familiarly subtle scene of cinnamon and musk.

"You don't have to do anything," he murmured, "Just take my hand."

 _It was cold. It was so cold._

 _Wide, green eyes surveyed the room before her. Blood pooled on the floor that was littered with bodies. Many of them had throats that had been torn out, others were disemboweled. Some were nearly cut in two._

 _Men. Women. Children. Babies._

 _There were so many dead_ _ **babies**_ _._

 _Kana looked down at her hands, which were gloved and drenched with blood that extended up to her elbows. Little bits of tissue still clung to the black fabric, like when you eat fried chicken with your hands and don't wipe your fingers between bites. Blood was splashed over her grey flak jacket – so much so that it might as well have been dyed red for all anyone could tell._

 _No, it wasn't cold. They were in the Land of Wind during July. It was light out. It was hot._

 _Why was she shaking?_

 _"Tsuki?"_

 _Kana's head snapped up so she could see the person that quietly called her name. The lone figure in the doorway had blood splatters as well, but only enough to prove that he had killed anyone; he didn't tear people to pieces like she did._

 _Kakashi wasn't a **monster** like she was._

 _He slowly entered the room, navigating around the corpses strewn about, and stopped just outside of the closet Kana was huddled in, dropping into a crouching position before her._

 _"It gets easier," he breathed, "I promise."_

 _Her eyes darted over to where three children were piled on top of one another. They must have been the same age as her._

 _"Don't look at them. Look at me."_

 _Kakashi had pulled aside his Anbu mask by the time the nine year-old could bring herself to tear her eyes away from the pile of dead kids. His eyes, so blue they were almost black, were full of a profound sadness as he gazed back at his teammate._

 _This was what Anbu was. It was hurting people that didn't need to be hurt._

 _A quiet noise made its way up the back of Kana's throat at the realization that this was what her life would be from now on. This was why Shisui didn't want to join Anbu with them – she had been angry with him at first but, now, the kunoichi only envied him._

 _She didn't want this. She didn't want to hurt good people._

 _Reaching one hand out, Kakashi's gaze softened, "It's alright, sweetheart. Just take my hand."_

Kana's fingers trembled when she released one of her biceps to slide her palm over her friend's. Even through his glove she could feel the warmth and familiar feel of his hand and, before she realized it, her fingers curled around his tight enough for her knuckles to burn white.

"Senpai..."

Holding her hand just as tightly, Kakashi used his other hand to reach up to brush away the hair that had fallen forward to cover her face.

" _Dammit_..." she heard Tsunade mutter under her breath, "Kakashi, you and the guards her out of here so I can think."

* * *

 **Note:** I had these scenes written out over and over again, and even considered having Kana tortured at some point, but... I dunno. I was never really satisfied with any way it went so I settled with this lol. Hope it was okay.

And, just an INB4, by the end of the chapter it's about a month and a half after Pain's Assault. I don't really know how much time went by between the Assault and Summit arcs, but I really wanted Danzo to not be a player in the field anymore so I figured this was an okay way to move past it. He'll make one or two more appearances in flashbacks, but that's about it. Also, I have no clue how much time is between the Summit and 4th War so let's not get on my ass about my timing for that lol.


	27. Chapter 27

Genma finished off the last of his beer and set it down on the bar to snatch up the one that had been provided by the barkeep just a minute or so earlier, "Have you seen her yet?"

The man next to him didn't answer for a good long moment, holding a swig of his own beer in his mouth longer than necessary to avoid having to use words, before swallowing thickly and shaking his head slowly, "Nope."

You didn't need to know Raido well to know that he wasn't _just_ on edge – he was teetering on the edge of a cliff that was beginning to crumble beneath his weight. Everyone was in a somber state of mind after the attack launched by the Akatsuki that resulted in their homes being wiped away, but it was obvious that he was somehow even more stressed than most others. It only seemed to get worse once the trial came to an end - Genma could practically _see_ the static that was keeping him together.

Being in the Niju Shotai meant that the tokubetsu jonin was one of the first people to be informed of any status change within the Akatsuki – well, that they knew of – so that, combined with the fact that he was a part of the Hokage Guard Platoon, meant that there was no way Raido wasn't aware of the results of Kana's trial. They didn't know the specifics, but they knew what mattered: She was home, and she was home for _good_.

As relieved as the group was over that fact, they all knew that she wasn't going to be returned to the shinobi force – at least not for a very good, long while – and they were on the cusp of a fourth world war. If they thought _they_ were in a bad place, they knew that it was exponentially worse for her, or was about to be once soldiers began to come home with only the hitai ate of their comrades.

They also knew that she was hiding from them like the goddamn _plague_.

"You gonna?"

Again, Raido took his time with answering as his expression darkened considerably. He raised a hand to rub the scarred half of his face, accidentally dislodging a grey hair that tumbled down to rest somewhere on the floor; he seemed to have a lot more grey hairs lately.

"I don't know, Gen," he sighed, eyes closing, "I don't _know_."

Genma nodded and didn't press the issue. He knew that confronting Kana was going to be real rough on all of them, especially for Raido. A part of him wanted to push him, to nudge him in her direction until Raido took the hint and moved in to sort things out, but Genma knew that his feelings stemmed from his own experience with beating around the bush for too long.

His heart grew heavier at the reminder.

Hayate…

Raising the bottle to his lips, he fought against the heartache that still somehow still continued to threaten to overtake him over four years after the little swordsman's death. Why the fuck shinobi continued to think it was a good idea to fall in love was completely beyond Genma; it _never_ ended well.

Still… he snuck a glance over at Raido, who was reaching for his seventh bottle of the night.

Love in their field was a shitty idea – they all knew it was. As much as Genma knew that, though, he also knew that he didn't want to see his best friend find himself in the same position as him. He didn't want to see him live with the regret of not stepping up and pursuing what everyone knew would be a good thing. Genma didn't want to see him wind up like him – fucking one of their best friends every now and then with his lover because he somewhat resembled the person he _really_ wanted to be with.

"So what's gonna happen with the Niju Shotai now that we know there are only a couple members of the Akatsuki left?" he asked casually before taking a long swig.

Raido's expression didn't change as he stared at the bar he was leaning on, "No clue. It sounds like they're going to retire the platoons and focus more on merging the Kage guard force, but…" he sighed heavily again and shrugged, letting the sentence remain open-ended.

The idea of working with other guard platoons made Genma squeamish; there was just something that felt wrong about guarding anyone other than the Hokage. Of course, the creation of the Allied Shinobi Force meant that he wouldn't be working with an enemy, so to speak, but he had spent over ten years acting as an elite bodyguard for the Hokage – it would take some serious adjusting to make room for bodyguards from another country, or for him to guard someone like, say, the Tsuchikage.

Genma sighed into his bottle and picked at a splinter that burrowed itself into his thumb hours earlier when he was helping out with the village reconstruction. Thanks to the generous aid from other nations they were able to rebuild a good amount of the village in the last two months, something that he knew they would forever be thankful for, but there was still a lot more that needed to be done before things would ever be able to be considered "Back to normal."

Brown eyes narrowed as his frown deepened.

He hated the idea of war.

* * *

Throughout Kana's entire life, she had a purpose.

Before the age of five she was training to join the academy. After the age of five she was training to graduate. After graduation she went on missions to defend her people and those she loved, quickly scaling the ladder before landing the coveted position of Anbu Captain. When her time as a Leaf shinobi came to an end, Kana's purpose was to prolong Itachi Uchiha's life as long as possible while acting as a spy within the Akatsuki. When he died, her purpose was to end humanity's suffering by playing as a key part in the Eye of the Moon Plan.

Now…

Kana stared at the wall that was adjacent to the one she sat against.

There was nothing.

She had been _so_ convinced that she was going to be executed for joining the Akatsuki and stealing information for Pain that would inevitably lead to the assault that wiped out the entirety of Konohagakure, as well as the death of the leader of an allied village. Death, or at least imprisonment at Blood Prison, would have been suitable punishments for someone that committed war crimes of that degree.

Punishment _in general_ would have been suitable.

Instead, Kakashi, the Anbu Commander, Inoichi and Shikaku convinced Lady Tsunade and the rest of the Konoha Council that she wasn't someone to be viewed as an enemy of the Leaf – that Danzo was largely to blame for forcing her body to graft with the DNA of a dead friend before sending her off to watch her childhood friend die a long, agonizing death. Without Danzo being present to defend his actions the Hokage had only their word to go off of, and the words of both village commanders as well as Kakashi Hatake were _very_ influential words, indeed.

There would be no imprisonment. There would be no capital punishment.

"It's been two weeks since your release. Have you made any attempt at contacting your loved ones?"

Mismatched eyes drifted from the wall to the blonde man sitting just off to the side of her and shook her head silently.

Two therapy sessions a week for an indefinite amount of time – presumably when Inoichi could affirm that she wasn't going to fly off the handle and start taking hostages again – and constant Anbu surveillance were all the punishment Kana was receiving, if that could be _called_ punishment. The Anbu were said to be for her protection, as there would be more than one person in the village that would be after her, as well as the remaining Akatsuki members that would want to take her out for deserting them, but she was pretty sure that they were primarily there to monitor her actions.

"What's preventing you from seeing them?" he asked, as if he was asking why Kana was simply holding off on making up with a friend after a petty spat.

She let her eyes fall back to the floor, too numb to even get irritated over how casual he was making the situation out to be.

That was another part of the freedom deal. Antipsychotics. Lots of them.

"Four of my friends tried to kill me," Kana's voice was only barely louder than a whisper as she spoke, "One of them I tried to murder …" she felt her body slip a little along the carpet-like fabric to sag into the easy chair she sat in, "The only person I have left is the little girl that I _manipulated_."

Inoichi's passive expression shifted only slightly at her words, "You feel they still harbor hostility towards you?"

Kana gave him a look. The first three sessions were dedicated to piecing apart nearly every moment that had transpired from the second Danzo conscripted her into Root, to the Akatsuki's attack, so the jonin was very much aware of the anger Izumo and Kotetsu exuded in their fight. He knew about how Raido volunteered to be a part of the retrieval team that launched an attack to end her life. He knew how Genma was ready for a battle when Kana slipped up during her first infiltration.

Every encounter she had with her former friends was a violent one.

It would be surprising if they _didn't_ still hate her.

"The chunin in the prison didn't seem like they were angry," Inoichi said redolently.

No, they didn't. Kana thought back to that moment, when all three of them realized who they were looking at, and could distinctly remember the way the two wore expressions of confusion and surprise. Izumo even looked expectant in the way he met her gaze as he took a little step towards the cell door.

The kids didn't look angry, either, though that could have probably been attributed to the fact that they were fighting off a crab-like crustacean that was easily the size of a building and there wasn't time to be hostile towards one another.

She thought back to the way Raido held her face upon waking from his injury-induced unconsciousness – to the way his eyes softened when a kiss was pressed into his palm.

When Kana didn't respond, Inoichi sighed heavily and set his clipboard down in his lap.

"You want to know what I think, Kana?"

Silence.

"I think you're afraid of them."

The woman sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and hooked it under her canine, thankful for her mask being thick enough to hide it from the Intelligence Division leader that was leaning forward so that his elbows rested on his knees.

"You don't want to experience the feeling of being rejected by those precious to you but, in the chance that they accept you back into their lives, you're afraid of losing them like you did with Itachi and - ."

"Don't talk about them," Kana narrowed her eyes and dropped them back to the floor.

Inoichi sighed again, "Alright, we don't have to touch that topic right now, but am I close?"

Blood sprang into her mouth when her teeth bit down too hard.

Of course he was right.

* * *

 **Note:** I'm about to go out of town for a handful of days so, even though this isn't a very big chapter, I figured I'd throw something up.


	28. Chapter 28

Perched atop rooftops, just out of view from anyone not intentionally looking in her direction… It was like Kana had been transported back in time to when she would watch over Sasuke from the cover of trees. Those with more refined senses, such as Guy or Sai, would sometimes look around as if they suspected someone was watching them, but they would end up shrugging it off and continue with whatever task they were engaging in.

Sometimes she considered dropping down to simply be _with_ them, but knew that they would be too insistent on answers to be content with be content with finally being together. So, Kana remained in hiding.

That was, until now.

 _Chnk_

 _Kana watched a shuriken sink into the wood of her apartment wall to join the ten others she had thrown, then reached down for the bottle of sake that sat next to her on the floor. If she wasn't constantly aware of the guards that attempted to discreetly stalk her through the streets, she was dodging the confused and hateful stares that were usually accompanied with a rather nasty comment, which meant she spent a whole lot of time with her own thoughts in her apartment._

 _After the first few days of finally braving the streets, she learned that the only way she would be able to walk outside without some sort of confrontation would be if she donned sunglasses and kept her hood up. Thankfully Tatsuma was able to get some of those exceedingly tinted lenses that his clan members frequently wore without bothering to ask any questions._

 _Bless that man._

 _Kana frowned at the reminder – she still had no idea what was happening to Root now that Danzo was dead. For all intents and purposes they were put on an indefinite hiatus, it seemed, since no one knew what to do with them._

 _Oh well. Not her problem._

 _Chnk_

 _The shuriken were initially being thrown to create the shape of the Akatsuki cloud but, halfway through, she somehow found herself turning it into the Anbu insignia. That, combined with the alcohol, meant that it just ended up looking like someone was senselessly lobbing throwing stars at the wall._

 _Which is basically what was happening._

 _Head lolling to the side, Kana squinted at the guard that was lurking in a tree just outside of the studio apartment that Tsunade had allowed her to use until she "Got back on her feet" as if there was any actual way for her to find a way to get a job in her situation. 'Oh, yes, I was previously employed with the organization that flattened our village. I was a bounty hunter and stole intelligence for an obscene amount of pay. I'm a changed woman, though, so I'd be no less than grateful for the opportunity to work in your bakery. My goal in life is now to make cookies and cupcakes in the shape of flowers.'_

 _The guard tilted his head to the side as if to ask a question, which Kana promptly ignored and rolled her head back to stare at the mess of shuriken in the wall. When she lifted the sake bottle back up to her lips, only to find it to be empty, she huffed angrily and chucked it at the same wall so that it shattered into a dozen or so pieces that only added to the small mound of clay remains from the two other bottles Kana drained earlier that evening._

 _There really wasn't much for her to do other than drink and buy more booze with what was left of her Akatsuki pay. A few times Kana made the attempt to help with the rebuilding process, by using various nature release techniques granted by her Otsutsuki DNA but, because she wasn't proficient in using them yet, the foundations and building pieces made weren't of the best quality. She was eventually shunned away from the rest of the builders._

 _The kunoichi – if she could even be called that anymore – slid down the wall she was sitting against to flop awkwardly to the closet floor with a heavy sigh._

 _Hours later, when the sun began to rise, the team of guards was swapped out for a batch of fresh masked faces that Kana didn't recognize. Whoever was leading the previous team must have submitted an unsatisfactory report of their shift, however, because it wasn't long before a familiar chakra signature approached the door to the one-room apartment. When Kakashi knocked once, she only rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling. He knew that she was there, he knew that she wasn't going to get up to let him in, and bothering with a response was more effort than she was willing to expel._

 _"You can't keep avoiding everyone," he said coolly after using his key to step into the room, "Have you at least seen Neji yet?"_

 _Kana didn't answer and she could almost feel Kakashi's frustration reach palpable levels._

 _"Is this what you plan on becoming, Kana? A drunkard that hides from the world?" the jonin took a step forward to peer down at her with a sad, lone eye, "When was the last time you slept, or ate something?"_

 _She rolled over onto her side to avoid his gaze, turning mismatched eyes to the pile of sake bottle rubble that littered the floor. The last time Kana slept was exactly eight days ago, for three hours before waking up in a cold sweat from a nightmare. As for when she last ate… She wasn't entirely sure._

 _With a sigh, Kakashi stuffed his hands into his pockets and lifted his masked face up to look out at the lightening sky._

 _"Don't put us through this again."_

Her hand shook almost violently as she lifted it to lightly tap her fingertips against the thin window pane. A large part of Kana told her that it was too soon, that she wasn't ready, but what Kakashi said had been bothering her for the last three days.

Because, as much as she hated to admit it, he was right; she couldn't let herself fall into that same pit of depression that swallowed her whole after the massacre. When Yuki was waiting for her, and when the world was counting down the days to war, Kana had to force herself to swallow her fears and worry so she could jumpstart whatever new life she was going to be faced with.

It took several long moments for the window to slide open, and she was pretty sure that the anticipation was going to make her vomit.

There was a look of momentary shock that flashed across his face before being replaced by one of his quiet, gentle smiles, and Izumo offered a hand to the woman to help her through. While Kana's fingers wrapped around his wrist tentatively at first, it took her just a second of her boots touching the wood floor before she brought her other hand up to clutch the fabric of his sleeping shirt. She didn't cry, or envelope herself in the embrace of her friend, choosing to instead cling to him from a distance in the heavy silence that hung in the air.

Izumo's free hand rubbed one of her too-thin shoulders, which trembled almost as much as her hands, and hummed quietly in understanding.

When Kana was insisting that she live life with only the kids and her most inner circle, it was the two chunin that reached out to her. It wasn't Genma, or Hayate, even if they were major players in her coming out of her shell completely as time wore on.

No, it was Izumo and Kotetsu who would show up at her apartment and invite her to go drinking, or train together. Kana never understood why, they never explained why they were so persistent, but she felt it only made sense to reach out to them first. In her mind, which was frazzled from a total lack of nearly everything she needed to function properly, the best idea seemed to be to reach out to the very first people who ever made an effort to reach out to her all those years ago.

They were her first _real_ friends after the massacre, and Kana could only pray that she was still as important to them as they were to her.

Because she needed them.

"I… I… Izumo…" Kana's words were ground out through clenched teeth, her jaw too tight to allow free speech, "I… Don't… I can't…"

The hand on her shoulder slowly pulled her in, giving her enough time to squirm away, to hold her in a gentle hug as Kotetsu stepped into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

"I'm so sorry."

Kotetsu joined the pair, resting his head against hers and wrapping his arms around both of their shoulder to pull them into a group hug. "We are, too," he murmured.

Kana's breath hitched when she leaned back into her friend, eyes sliding shut behind her sunglasses.

"Welcome home, hon."


	29. Chapter 29

"You didn't get any sleep, again, did you?"

Looking up from the batter she was whisking, Kana watched Kotetsu groggily enter the kitchen while rubbing the sleep away from his face with a deep inhale. She frowned and dropped her gaze back down to the task at hand, "I don't really… Sleeping hasn't been easy for me for a long time."

Even when she was curled around the two chunin over the last three nights, Kana's mind wasn't able to calm itself enough to sleep - it seemed that it was more than just Kisame's warmth and weight that helped her relax, after all.

Kotetsu smoothed his hair back into the messy ponytail he usually wore it in when he was home, "Nightmares?" he asked while reaching for the pot of coffee that had been prepared about half an hour earlier. After a beat, he added, "You don't gotta explain if you don't want to."

There were a few moments of silence as she added the vanilla extract to the batter before grabbing a ladle. As much as Kana wanted to do exactly as Inoichi suggested, to let her old friends in and help her move on… It had been so long before she had actually confided in anyone about anything that _mattered_. There was a difference between talking about her favorite foods with Kisame, and explaining what went through her mind every time her body began to feel the call of sleep.

Pale wisteria eyebrows knitted thoughtfully as she poured carefully-measured medallions onto the skillet. The chopped blueberries almost immediately began to bleed into the surrounding batter like violet blossoms.

"I just…" Kana sighed, "I'm… I'm sorry."

Kotetsu shifted so that he was standing behind her with his chin resting on her shoulder, "We aren't expecting things to go back to normal just like that," he said quietly, "But we're your friends – we're _always_ gonna be." As if to make his point, he placed his hands on her upper arms and rubbed them reassuringly – it seemed that Kotetsu still liked touching things.

Years ago, his display of affection would have warmed Kana's chest and brought a smile to her lips – their weird family that used physical contact as affirmations of their friendship used to bring her so much comfort - but now she just felt a heavy sadness at the reminder of how things were so drastically different.

The kunoichi flipped the pancakes over once they started to bubble, twitching when Kotetsu poked at her ribs.

"I hope you're making a bunch of those. Pretty sure being this skinny isn't healthy. When was the last time you even _ate_?"

Things were drastically different, but it seemed that the people around her were _still_ going to be getting on her case about her appearance. Sure, the muscle atrophy that came from being in a hospital bed for four weeks, then locked in a prison for about two more, then laying around in her apartment for about four more – all while not bothering to eat and basically getting all of her calories from sake and other boozes – meant that Kana was _probably_ underweight, but she wasn't a shinobi anymore so what did it matter?

"She's been here for three days, and you're _already_ ignoring me for her," a familiar voice whined playfully. Kotetsu backed away just moments before the familiar soft smacking sound of kissing reached her ears.

"Maybe if _you_ made me pancakes then I'd show a little more interest," he teased back.

The couple bickered back and forth while Kana poured the last of the pancake batter into the heated pan, keeping an eye on the large omelet that was cooking in another. When was the last time she _actually_ cooked? Because they were constantly on the move, Akatsuki members got their food from street vendors and small cafes in smaller villages with little to no military strength – cooking was a luxury they didn't have. If she thought really hard, Kana thought she could remember making three bento boxes for Tenten to take with her to the training field the day before she left, though she couldn't recall their contents.

The point was that she really hoped this didn't taste like ass from being out of practice. It was awkward enough that she was still here, after showing up out of the blue and spending the last few days in their apartment, and Kana was only making them breakfast in the first place because she had literally no idea how to break the ice with them. She had half of a mind to just leave in the middle of the first night to avoid all of this, and the only reason she didn't was because it would defeat the entire purpose of coming to them in the first place. Instead, they simply hovered around each other while making awkward small talk while the elephant in the room grew bigger and bigger with each waking moment.

Taking a deep breath, Kana scooped the food onto two plates and turned on her heel to set them on the table, immediately feeling all of her resolve and courage vacate her body when she saw the chunin look up from their coffee with matching smiles; it was quickly replaced by feelings of fear and uncertainty that caused her to almost drop both of the plates.

"I'm… Imma get going," she said shakily, sliding the food in front of them, "Thanks. For, uh –"

"You're not going to eat with us, again?" Izumo's gentle smile faltered as he spoke, "But it looks so good …"

 _'It's blueberry pancakes and some egg with generic vegetables, Izumo. Pretty basic stuff.'_

Kana shifted uncomfortably and lowered her eyes to the floor so she didn't have to see their growing disappointment, "I'm not hungry. And… I have to... Report to Lady Tsunade for…" She trailed off with a sigh, knowing that her lie was as transparent as a window, and wrapped a lock of hair around her finger anxiously.

Their smiles faded in time with one another into expressions of worry; she felt her own feelings of being a piece of shit meld into her anxiety. As much as she wanted to teleport back to her apartment and crawl back into the closet where her makeshift bed was, she knew that she _needed_ to get over this. Kana couldn't spend three years dodging their attempts at rekindling their friendship like she did the last time they struggled to get her out of her shell – back then she didn't _want_ them in her life, so things needed to be different this time around.

She moved faster than necessary, flitting about the kitchen to grab a plate and scoop some food onto it hard enough to almost miss it entirely, and nearly broke the chair when she dropped into it a little too hastily.

Fuck.

"You… Haven't seen anyone else, have you?" Izumo asked softly after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. When Kana shook her head silently, he nodded in understanding and looked back down at his partially-eaten pancakes, "So what're you going to do?"

After three years of not having any coffee – as most places they went to were tea-or-water-only establishments - the woman scrunched her face at how much more bitter it tasted than she remembered, and set the mug back down. The frown she wore deepened as she picked up a fork to poke at the fluffy omelet that made wet _squish_ noises with every prod.

"No idea," she mumbled, "I… I _want_ to see the others…"

"But it's hard, after what's happened," Kotetsu finished.

Kana bit her lip and nodded, finally using the fork to cut at the egg roll to nudge it around the plate, "I just… I feel like… I feel like if I don't explain everything, then we can't move on, but…" her brow furrowed and she stabbed the egg piece a little too hard, causing it to split into uneven halves, "I don't know how… Or when… To talk… I-I don't – I mean, do I wait after a few weeks of pretending to ignore the way people look at me? And pretend like we're all friends again and just drop the bomb? Or…?"

Dropping the fork to the plate with a noisy clatter, she pulled her hair out of its braid to run shaking fingers through it.

Sensing her rising anxiety, Izumo reached out to pull her hand away from the locks it was currently trying to entangle itself in and wrapped it in both of his own, squeezing gently.

"If you want my advice, hon… I think it would be better, for everyone, if you just came clean and put everything on the table up front," he said quietly in a voice that spoke enough understanding that made Kana's chest ache.

Next to him, Kotetsu nodded and took a sip of his coffee before adding, "We get that maybe you can't share everything, but it'll help a _lot_ if we just have an _idea_ of what happened."

"You came home, and that's what matters the most," Izumo explained, "Even so, Kotetsu's right – more than anything else, we just want to understand."

"When you're ready."

Kana released a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding before squeezing the chunin's hand like he did moments earlier. After everything that happened, she would be lying if she said that she was expecting to be met with nothing less than intense hostility – from everyone, not just other shinobi, including the two men sitting to her right. It was part of why she spent three days hiding in her apartment after her talk with Kakashi; she had been mentally preparing herself for the backlash that she knew would inevitably come from approaching one of her old friends.

The lack of anger coming from Izumo and Kotetsu was simultaneously giving her reassurance and making her feel like hell. She _deserved_ to have anger directed towards her – she _deserved_ to be punished by her village for everything she did. In her mind, that was what was supposed to happen. The fact that her village was just treating her like any other shinobi with PTSD, and her friends were saying they just wanted an explanation, was unsettling.

A part of her knew it had to do with what the Anbu Commander said, that she was too full of remorse, and that Kana just wanted to be punished so she could feel even the tiniest bit better about what happened.

It was abhorrently selfish, but it was true.

She sighed heavily, eyes sliding shut, and she pulled off her sunglasses to rub at them with the hand not holding Izumo's. Hiding from her loved ones as a form of punishment wasn't going to make anything better for anyone – the chunin were right in saying that it would be better to get everything out in the open so they could move on. As much as Kana felt like she wasn't ready, that she needed more time to mentally prepare herself, she knew that it was just her way of procrastinating so she didn't have to confront the others.

Because confronting the others meant confronting her own thoughts and experiences from the last three years, and not in the mission report-like way she addressed them with Inoichi.

"I… I think I want to get everyone together to do it, then," Kana nearly whispered, "I just… Don't want to keep…"

Izumo nodded and rubbed the back of her hand, "Of course. We can do it here."

"We'll talk to Gen when we see him in the mission room later, but it might be better if you talked to Raido yourself," Kotetsu frowned at his plate, "After we nuke our pancakes."

Kana hid the worry that flared through her chest by laughing – a weak, hollow sound – at his comment with a nod. Their food had long since turned cold, with Kotetsu's being especially bad since he drowned almost the entire plate in copious amounts of syrup.

"Dammit, Ko! Why do you even bother eating real food if you're only going to ruin it with – ?"

"Ruin it?!" the chunin's mouth dropped open in mock-anger as he stood up from his chair fast enough to knock it backwards, " _Ruin it?!"_

The two began their routine bickering over Kotetsu's food preferences, which mostly consisted of Izumo being worried for his health and asking why he doesn't even make an _attempt_ to use the sugar-free options that are on the market, to which his lover responded to by claiming he exercised enough for his body to be okay with what he admitted was an unusual intake of processed sugars.

They pretended to not notice Kana slip through the front door as they placed their plates into the microwave in turn, the barest of subtle smiles playing across her lips.

When she was sure that she was out of earshot, she jumped up to a rooftop so that she was face-to-face with the Anbu escort with a mouse-shaped mask with yellow markings. He had less than a beat to even realize what was happening before Kana sucked him and the three others into her Kamui, jumping in with them and then spitting them all out into her apartment. The last time she used the Mangekyo ability to teleport home without them, they raised all sorts of hell and nearly half of the Anbu force had been sent out in search of her, so Kana decided it would just be easier to get home this way.

They clearly didn't share her sentiment, however, and each one of them groaned at the twisting sensation of teleportation as they struggled to maintain their balance. One of them toppled over to fall back onto his butt with a dissatisfied grunt.

"That… Was _unnecessary_ ," the one in the bird mask grumbled, pushing his fingers up under his mask to rub at his forehead.

Kana ignored him and picked up one of the two clean t-shirts that hung on a wire hanger in her closet, snatching the only black pants she owned, and wasted no time with flickering over to the tiny three-by-two bathroom that only barely had enough space to fit a shower, a toilet and a single cabinet that a sink was built into. Stripping out of her one piece and jacket, Kana jumped into the cold stream of water that did nothing to ease her jittery nerves.

Confronting Raido was something she hoped she wouldn't have to do until later, but also knew that if she continued to put it off then she would eventually lose her resolve.

So, that's why she was speeding through her shower and trying to not tear her hair out while aggressively shampooing it and scrubbing her skin so vigorously that she was almost surprised her tattoos didn't wash away into the water that swirled around her feet.

All Kana had to do was knock on the door, tell him that she was meeting a few people at the chunins' apartment, then leave. Maybe she would just leave a note, that way they wouldn't have to even talk to each other.

It _sounded_ like a simple plan but, as she toweled herself out and pulled her clothes on, she knew that it was more than just the pants that were making her uncomfortable. It was more than just the thin sheen of leftover dampness that made her shiver when she stepped back out into the normally warm room of her apartment. It was more than just the lack of food that left her feeling nauseous as she jumped into her Kamui dimension with the other Anbu.

Talking to Kakashi would be easy, for the most part, because he already had a general idea that things weren't as they seemed. Kana knew that he most likely told that much to Guy, who had been like a father to her for most of her life. The night she fled Konoha, she told Neji that she was doing what she did for the safety of the village, so he had a similar idea as Kakashi. Even Genma, the man that was completely out of the loop, said that he couldn't believe that she was "One of them."

It seemed that everyone but Raido and the chunin believed that there was more to the story than what met the eye and, for some reason, Kotetsu and Izumo readily accepted her back into their lives after being so eager to kill her in the forest with Asuma and Shikamaru.

A dark voice in the back of Kana's head reminded her that they had at least been open about their intentions, though – that Raido tried to use her feelings against her as a distraction so Yugao could land a killing blow.

The thought made her stop in her tracks, freezing on the spot with one hand half-raised to knock on the door to his apartment. What part of her that insisted he deserved to know why his lover walked out of his life by stabbing him in the flank was quickly being drowned out by the reminder that he made a legitimate effort to end her life just a year later.

"You might as well go through with it," of the guards commented shakily.

Kana looked over at him with narrowed eyes, "You just don't want to be teleported again."

He shrugged with a heavy sigh, "That, too. That fucking sucks. But, really," he keeled over and placed his palms on his knees, "Watching you is fucking _depressing_. I mean, suicide watch is _always_ depressing - ."

"Wait," she stepped away from the door to help him stand back up, "Put your hands behind your head to breathe. What do you mean 'Suicide watch'?"

"Our primary assignment is to observe you twenty-four-seven to prevent you from taking your own life," the man in the mouse mask explained to her left, "Were you not aware of this?"

Uh, _no_. Kana thought that they were following her around because Tsunade assumed she was going to snap again and either go rejoin the Akatsuki or go on a killing rampage – that, and there were a _lot_ of shinobi that wouldn't mind having her head served up on a platter for being associated with the same terrorist organization that flattened their home two or three months back.

Were they really under the impression that she was going to kill herself?

Actually… As bizarre as the idea sounded at first… Kana drank all day and refused to eat or leave her apartment. Looking down at her hands, which were admittedly close to being skeletal, she had to ask herself if she was subconsciously starving herself to death, or if she had simply given up on bothering to _try_ anymore.

She took an uncertain step back and leaned against the metal railing that enclosed the apartment building breezeway. Was that why one of the guards from earlier that week went to fetch Kakashi?

 _"You need to meet people, baby, the way you shut yourself away like this… It isn't healthy."_

 _"That small sliver of light within you began to fade so quickly that I – I was so scared I was going to lose my little girl."_

Words that Guy spoke years ago, words that Kana had very nearly forgotten, finally hit home.

"Kana?"

Oh, _fuck_.

Almost giving herself whiplash, and making her ponytail whip around hard enough to smack her in the cheek, Kana looked up from her hands in horror to see Raido standing maybe ten or twelve feet away with a bag of groceries in one arm, keys dangling from his other hand.

She thought back to what Kotetsu said earlier about Genma working in the mission room, and it suddenly occurred to her that they would be _relieving_ him from his shift – the shift that he almost always shared with Raido, Iruka or Anko.

The fear that Kana thought she felt earlier wasn't even comparable to the cold terror that washed over the second she heard that familiar voice call her name. It didn't come close to the fight-or-flight response that had her pressing back into the cold bar that dug into her hips, refusing to budge. When Raido took a step forward, she grabbed the corner post and hoisted herself up so that she was crouching on the railing and ready to jump, which the Anbu team responded to by spreading out in case they had to follow.

"What are you doing here?"

The sound of his voice, rough and husky from the same fire jutsu that caused the scars that stretched across his cheek, made Kana's stomach twist painfully as she was reminded of the night she left him. Raido was wearing almost the exact same confused, fretful expression he wore when he found her sitting on the edge of their bed in the dark with her few belongings packed into a bag that sat at her feet.

It was too soon. _This was too fast_. Seeing Izumo and Kotetsu was one thing, but this was _Raido_. This wasn't the same – this was a whole other ballpark she threw herself into and Kana realized she needed more time to brace herself.

 _"I think you're afraid of them."_

Of course she was afraid. She was fucking _terrified_. If she reached out, she couldn't go back to keeping herself safe behind the wall that separated her from everyone else. There wasn't any going back after this. Kana could be rejected, or accepted, and either outcome left her feeling like her world was going to fall apart at the seams.

Raido took another step forward. When she tried to make words, to tell him to stay away, the only thing that came out was a strained abortive noise that got caught in her throat. He took another step forward, and Kana gripped the railing harder even as her legs refused to move.

"We'll be on the roof, Captain."

 _'No, don't go.'_

She didn't want to be left alone with him. Being left alone with him meant that she didn't have an excuse to leave.

Kana didn't realize she was crying until Raido's figure was nothing more than a blur of green and blue.

"We… At… We're…" The words seemed to struggle to force their way past her mouth, and struggled even more to string together into a coherent sentence as she tried to explain what had taken place earlier in the magpies' kitchen, "I, uh… Met with… And…"

It was like a fuse had short circuited in Kana's brain that scrambled her thoughts and turned her tongue to lead. There was one question that managed to successfully form, though, and it was one that plagued her for more nights than she could count.

"Did you really volunteer to… To kill me?"

Spiky brown hair quivered when he took a step, vehemently shaking his head with an expression of abject horror, " _No_! What happened with Yugao –she was angry that you betrayed the Anbu Black Ops, and tried to take matters into her own hands. That _wasn't_ a part of the plan."

"I needed help finding you," Raido explained, "I asked Lady Hokage if I could lead the mission because I thought that if I reminded you of what we had, if I proved that I wanted to spend my _life_ with you, then you'd _come_ _home_. But… Yugao got angry, and lost it when she saw you had the hilt to Hayate's sword – the plan was _only_ to engage you if you attacked us, first."

She thought back to that day in the forest, trying to bring up the details of the event, while savagely gnawing on the inside of her lip. Kana had noted that the presence of Aoba and the lack of black clothing meant that Raido intended to take her alive, and it had been Yugao that tried sneaking around… She assumed that it was just a ploy to keep her distracted long enough for the Anbu member to get in a sneak attack.

There was something that she knew about Raido, though, and that was he never, _ever_ lied to her. Not once.

Not like she did to him.

Setting the paper bag and his keys on the concrete walkway, he ran a hand through his hair and released a heavy sigh, eyes glued to the ground, "What you said the night you left. Did you mean it?"

 _"In all honesty I was just playing around with you to pass the time because you're easy to manipulate."_

 _"You're clingy, and annoying, and I'm sick of looking at your disgusting scars."_

 _"I don't_ _ **want**_ _you. I'm_ _ **sick**_ _of you, is that so hard for you to understand?"_

Kana's own eyes squeezed shut to blink away burning tears, and shook her head just hard enough for near-white bangs to swish with her movements, "I… No… I didn't."

Having closed most of the distance between them by this point, Raido reached out to tentatively stroke her cheek; her breathing hitched when his callused thumb grazed the soft flesh under her eye to wipe away the stream of warm tears.

She unwittingly leaned into the palm that cupped her face, eyes sliding shut at the warm weight of his callused palm. He was close enough for Kana to smell the agonizingly familiar scent of wood and musk – the same scent she would wrap herself in at night when they cuddled on the couch to read or watch tv together. It was the same scent that filled her senses when they made love, attenuated by the subtle smell of sweat and sex and heightened by the repeated mantras of "I love you."

Raido leaned down to press his lips into the top of her head, nuzzling her hair and taking a deep breath before placing another kiss on her temple. It was the same way he would kiss her after coming back from a particularly stressful mission, as if she were all he needed. It was a gesture Kana had learned to love just as much as she did the man himself.

How many nights did she spend lying awake trying to imagine how this scene would play out? How many hours did she pass by daydreaming about what it would be like to feel his touch, just one more time?

Kana turned her face just enough for her lips to ghost over the pad of his thumb, not unlike she did the day of Pain's attack, and pressed a kiss into the warm palm. In response, Raido used his free hand to hold the other side of her jaw, cradling her head in his hands, and tilted her face up so that their noses brushed together.

His breath was hot against her mouth, and she could feel that his lips were parted _just_ enough to where they would perfectly mold with hers if he just leaned down that extra inch, but Raido kept their faces apart long enough for him to push her tinted sunglasses up into her hair. When she finally opened her eyes, he asked quietly, "The day you saved me. Did you mean what you said _then_?"

 _"I never wanted you to get hurt, Raido – please, believe me! I love you – I love you, Raido!"_

A strangled sob escaped her lips. Kana shifted enough for their noses to rest against each other, and she could feel the uneven ridges of his scarring when she nuzzled his cheek in a desperate attempt at feeling more of him, even if she was too afraid to indulge in anything more. Her breathing hitched again when she inhaled deeply.

"Yes."

It was only just barely loud enough for it to be audible, but Kana could feel Raido's brow furrow against her own at her answer. She could feel his breathing quicken as much as she could hear it, and the fingers that held her cheeks flexed.

"Say it, Kana," he nearly growled, "I need to hear it."

Raising mismatched eyes to lock with his, she could feel another wave of warm tears fill up before spilling over her cheeks. She knew what he was asking, and what was being offered in return, and Kana felt like she was precariously teetering on the crumbling edge of a cliff with an inky black chasm below, with Raido standing right behind, ready to take hold and pull her to safety if she just trusted him enough.

Being home, having breakfast with the chunin, being this close to Raido, face close enough for her to smell the subtle hint of coffee on his breath… The whole situation just felt too surreal for her to feel as if she could grasp onto it, and Kana struggled to make sense of it all as he silently waited for a response. It was almost everything she wished for so, _so long_ , and the understanding that it was finally being presented outside of her dreams left her feeling almost dizzy.

Tattooed hands, clad in standard black gloves, came up to grip his upper arms for support at the thought, as if he was the only thing keeping her from plummeting down the five stories of the building to the concrete below. Through the fabric of his shinobi jersey she would feel the muscles in his biceps twitch and flex in response.

"I love you, Raido," Kana's voice was small in her ears, too small to possibly ever belong to her, "I love you," another snivel as she used the hold on his arms to pull herself closer, " _I love you, Raido_."

The tokujo made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a cross between a groan and heartbreaking sob just before closing what little distance there was between their faces. She offered herself to him, allowing Raido to set the pace of the chaste kisses he fluttered over her lips like a bee that bounced around a flower before finally touching down on its petals.

His lips were just as soft as she remembered, thin and full and so fucking _perfect_ as they moved with her own. They made the ache behind her eyes she wasn't even aware of fade away, and the sickeningly cold wire of fear wrapped around her heart loosened when he used the hands on her head to hold her in place so he could deepen the kiss. When Kana slid her hands up and around the backs of his shoulders, she realized that she had forgotten how to breathe and it only made her return the kiss that much more fervor.

"Oh god," he ground out between hurried kisses, "Tell me you're not going to leave. Tell me you're gonna stay with me."

Kana mewled when his mouth trailed along her jaw, the hungry sounds dancing over her ear sending her nerve endings into an electrified frenzy. It wasn't until Raido dragged his tongue along the shell of her ear and roughly nipped at the lobe at she even realized he had said anything, too overwhelmed to pay attention to anything other than the fact that he was kissing her and one of his hands was squeezing her waist and she could feel his saliva on her skin from where his mouth had been and _he was kissing her._

" _Kitten_."

The desperation in his voice snapped her out of the haze long enough for her to turn her face enough to press a hard kiss into his cheek, "I – I won't leave you."

Kana whimpered when he slanted his mouth back over hers to greedily bring them together in a bruising kiss with a groan.

"I love you so much," Raido used the hand on her waist to pull her away from the railing, "God, kitten, I missed you," he groaned into her mouth again when she wrapped herself around his torso in response, and his hands smoothed down her body to support her weight, "I missed you so _fucking_ much. I thought was never going to see you again."

Hands molded to his jaw and her legs tightly secured around his waist, Kana couldn't find the presence of mind to respond as she melded their mouths together. There would be plenty of time for apologizing and explaining later – right now she just wanted to feel Raido's body against hers, and breathe in his familiar scent of wood and musk, and relish the way Raido's mouth tasted clean and sweet, like rain. It was like he embodied everything she loved about Konoha and it filled her senses as his tongue danced over the seam of her lips in a silent request that Kana was eager to grant.

The cold wire almost completely unraveled itself from where it squeezed at her chest. Raido's tongue was warm and wet as it swirled around hers, and Kana was absolutely certain that there was no better feeling than their shared breaths puffing against their swollen lips as they struggled to map out each others' mouths. When Raido moaned, a soft, grunting sound, in the back of his throat before flicking the tip of his tongue over the roof of her mouth, she could feel a thin line of drool trickle down her chin and she wasn't sure who it belonged to.

It wasn't long until the way she had been treating her body began to catch up with her, and Kana realized that the lightheadedness from earlier had yet to go away when her eyelids grew heavy and her breathing became too labored for it to be from just making out. She had to make a conscious effort to tear her face away from Raido's, immediately feeling empty and cold, and let her arms drop to circle his shoulders for extra support.

"R-Rai… I'm gonna pass out," she panted into his collar.

The arms around her waist and hips tightened, and he pulled back just enough for his mouth to rest against the side of her head, making her hair flutter in time with his heavy breathing, "What –w what's wrong?"

Had the situation been different, Kana probably would have laughed. What _wasn't_ wrong? She hadn't eaten in nearly two and a half weeks, her only fluid intake was booze, the last time she slept was nearly two weeks ago, and her emotions were in chaos.

Instead, she just screwed her eyes shut against the way the world seemed to spin around them with a weak moan.

"Alright, I've got you," Raido cooed, putting one foot up on the railing to jump off, "Let's get you checked out at the hospital."

* * *

"How the _hell_ did you let it get so bad before bringing her in?!"

Raido's eyes didn't leave his lover's face as she struggled to stay conscious, mismatched eyes glazed over but still on him. Lady Fifth's voice had no trouble carrying through the relatively thin walls of the hospital, one of the few buildings that didn't need to be completely rebuilt, though he was pretty sure that Kana was too out of it to even register what was being said.

"There is no excuse for my failure - ."

"It's not just _your_ failure, Captain, there were three _other_ Anbu Black Ops teams assigned to her. I want to know why the hell every one of you failed to mention that she had allowed herself to fall into such a state!"

His calloused fingers stroked the back of her hand, feeling the metacarpals jut out of the pale tattooed flesh that was stretched tight over them.

"She holds valuable intel on the Akatsuki that we may need later – or did no one inform you that we're about to go to _war_ with them?!"

The IV bag was nearly empty, having transferred most of its contents through the butterfly needle that was embedded into Kana's arm. He didn't understand what happened for her to go without food or water for so long, but he felt more than fortunate that she came to him before finally succumbing to her body's weakened state. Had she fainted in whatever apartment she was staying in, Raido wasn't entirely sure if the Anbu goons in charge of watching her would have had the thought to bring her to the hospital; it would have only been a matter of time before cardiac arrest set in.

"I apologize, milady -."

"I don't want your apologies!" she cut him off for the umpteenth time in their talk, "I'm taking you, and the others, off of the assignment – effective immediately. Commander Hiketsu will deal with your punishment, so get out of my sight!"

The door to the sterile room swung open just moments later to reveal a frustrated-looking Tsunade that was flipping through some papers clipped to a chart. She paid no mind to Raido and focused on the woman lying in the hospital bed, poking some buttons with the hand not holding the clipboard before reaching out to start taking Kana's vital's. The way she flinched away from the Hokage's touch, as subtle as it was, didn't go unnoticed, but it seemed to be of very little concern to her.

"You spend too much time with Kakashi," she muttered irritably, "Quit fighting the drugs and let your body heal yourself. You're a _doctor_ , you _know_ how important rest is."

Silvery lashes fluttered in response; it was all Kana could manage in her current state. He didn't understand much about sleeping medicines, but Raido knew that she had been put on some pretty heavy-duty stuff to put her into a sort of medically-induced coma. He was under the impression that those were only supposed to be done in cases where the patient is in extreme pain, and nearly raised hell until it was explained to him that Kana was suffering from a severe case of PTSD that wasn't allowing her to sleep.

Running a hand over her wrist and up to her forearm, the tokujo squeezed gently and tried to not let his somber feelings show through what he hoped as a reassuring smile.

"I'll stay with you," he said softly, "I won't go anywhere."

The hand still holding his twitched in response, and Raido watched her brow furrow as she struggled with her own internal battle. It made his chest clench painfully.

All shinobi lived with psychological damage in one way or another, whether it be through depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and so on; it was why every ninja was required to undergo monthly psych evaluations on top of physical exams. He dealt with his own issues by cleaning his weapons, an ironically cathartic process, or would run laps around the village until his legs couldn't carry him anymore. Genma was constantly chewing on that infernal senbon and burying his own stresses into the rear ends of the chunin, which seemed to be a pretty common way of coping – sex, not sex with the magpies.

As a result… He was watching alien-like eyes struggle to stay open in a display of an ingrained fear of what could happen if Kana let herself fall asleep.

Raido knew that Kana drank and trained enough to give Might Guy a run for his money to cope with her own problems, but he knew that she wasn't good at talking about them; when she left the village he wondered if she only scraped through her psych evals because the Leaf considered her too useful to bench her. It made absolutely no sense how someone could be so visibly happy could simply snap one day and withdraw from everyone she knew and loved, then abandon the village to join a terrorist organization a little less than a year later. Even if the tokujo was aware that one of the members of the Akatsuki was a relic of her past that he knew very, very little about - Kana had really only mentioned him in passing, just fleeting references, and would clam up if anyone asked for more - it still felt inconceivable that she would choose to betray everything she believed in just to be with him. There had to be some sort of sign - something that everyone missed, or simply refused to ignore.

Maybe that was because Raido didn't want to believe that there was a man out there that was more important to her than he was.

The call of the drug-induced sleep proved to be too much, or maybe there was something comforting about Raido's promise to stay by her side, and it was only a few more moments before her eyelids finally slid shut and the tension around her mouth softened.

"I don't want to see you like that again, Namiashi," Tsunade murmured after they were certain that Kana was actually asleep, head tilted down as she scrawled something into a form, "I can't have my best men get shaken up to the point where they forget to come into work." She finished writing and slid the pen under the metal clip before turning on her heel and walking towards the door, "I want you to think about that before jumping into whatever this is."

Tsunade didn't give him time to answer, the door clicking shut behind her just as she finished speaking, but Raido didn't mind because he wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to respond to something like that.

He lifted his gaze to watch the sleeping figure next to him, idly tracing the mysterious tattoos that circled her arm with the tips of his fingers. Raido never learned what they were for, other than the tattoo on her left hand that was the kanji for "Shield" surrounding by unrecognizable circles and swirls that curled around each of her fingers. During their brief altercation in the forest he was able to see that there was also one on her thigh, and there were probably more that he couldn't see, just like the few scars on her face.

So _much_ had changed over the course of more than three, nearly four, years. They obviously wouldn't be able to just pick up where they left off, but would they ever find themselves sharing something even remotely similar to what they had before?

Raido was thirty-six years old – he was a grown man that experienced enough to not buy into the magical romance that Jiraiya wrote about in his novels, which meant that he knew that things were never going to be exactly as they used to be. What they had before, the perfect scenarios he would dream about, _wouldn't_ become a part of their future. Could he accept that? Would he be okay with struggling to pick up what pieces were left of their relationship?

As if on cue, a soft sigh escaped Kana's chapped lips, and her fingers twitched in his palm, which he brought up to his lips to press a gentle kiss over the scarred knuckles.

"Still here, kitten," he whispered, feeling the tight pang of worry in his chest lessen somewhat by the warmth that came from watching her relax into the hospital sheets at the sound of his voice.

Yeah..

Picking up the remaining pieces would be alright.

They could always make new ones.


	30. Chapter 30

"Do you need help?"

Kana really didn't, but she knew that the teenager was feeling too jittery to relax if she didn't hand him the box of takoyaki that she carried in both of her hands, so she tried not to sigh when she passed the food over.

"I'm _okay_ , Neji," she said softly, using her recently freed hand to slip through his elbow so they could walk arm in arm, "I just was a little dehydrated and needed something to eat, that's all."

The sidelong look her brother gave her told her that he didn't really believe the half-truth that was presented to him, but seemed almost afraid to complain. Neji had been like this since she was released from the hospital nearly a week ago. She thought that crashing his training session with Lord Hiashi and Hinata – after the bone-crushing hugs and an afternoon of simply basking on one another's presence, would help him understand that she was fine, for all intents and purposes, but it felt like he was just tiptoeing around Kana while simultaneously insisting to be as close to her as possible at all times.

It really wasn't too unlike the way he acted when she was put in the hospital after her mission to Yumegakure, except, back then, he had been needy and demanding of her attention; now he mostly ghosted around Kana and acted as if she was made of a crystal that would shatter at the smallest thing.

It wasn't really his fault, as he was still in the dark about everything that had happened in the last three and a half years, but she had to admit she was getting tired of people treating her like the smallest thing would scare her away, or break her. Even Raido seemed almost afraid to let her out of his sight, frequently waking up in the middle of the night to call Kana's apartment to make sure she was still reading in the closet or pretending to watch whatever television program was currently airing.

Thankfully, the chunin were able to at least make a conscious effort at masking whatever worries they may hold.

Izumo offered one of his quiet smiles when he opened the door for the two, eyeing the Tupperware in Neji's hands and the paper bag in Kana's.

"Aren't we past host gifts?" he asked in a voice that was tight beneath the humor it carried.

Well, she couldn't expect him to be in bright spirits _all_ the time.

"It's really not so much a host gift as it is a thank you," she stepped over the threshold and lifted the paper bag so that the glass bottles clinked against each other, "And this is mostly for my sake."

It was at that moment that Kotetsu rounded the corner to pad down the hall to the genkan, probably having been sitting in their shared living room while waiting for people to start showing up. His usual toothy, crooked grin was replaced by a tight-lipped smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, but he reached out to Kana nonetheless to bring her into a welcoming hug that she was sure was more to settle his own nerves.

Izumo helped her load the Belvedere and Jägermeister into his freezer, with both of them deciding that the Hakushika was better served at room temperature so it was left on the counter.

The decision on who to invite to the meeting was left entirely up to Kana, but it pretty much went without saying that only the people she felt absolutely connected to would be approached. Not only was this an evening that was going to be spent with her reliving the most painful parts of her life, it was one where they were going to be briefed on incredibly sensitive information that could never, under _any_ circumstances, leave the chunins' living room.

Guy and Kakashi were the first to arrive together, eyes heavy and dark from what was probably stress and a lack of sleep, and thankfully without Iruka in tow. The latter already knew about Itachi but hadn't arrived to the trial in time to know exactly what led up to Kana's departure, so he was just as in the dark as her father figure as they leaned against walls opposite of each other, clearly too anxious to bother with pretending to get comfortable on one of the sofas.

Mismatched eyes were glued to the floor; it was still too difficult to look at Guy even after the tearful reunion where he spent nearly an hour standing in his doorway holding her so tightly to his chest that she left with bruises.

Raido showed up on his own half an hour later and explained that Genma wasn't too far behind, he just got stuck in the mission room with some recently-promoted chunin that didn't know how to properly fill out a mission report. When he settled down on the opposite side of Kana from where Neji sat he must have felt her body tense, because he almost immediately wrapped his arms around her shoulders for a brief, strong hug that did nothing to squeeze away her growing anxiety.

They decided that it would be best to not bring Tenten or Lee to the gathering because they weren't entirely sure if they were on a need-to-know basis, or if they would even be able to fully comprehend everything that was going to be covered without suffering trust issues with their village. It wasn't that they believed they were disloyal, or unstable, but this wasn't something you just _told_ someone unless you knew _exactly_ how they would handle it.

That meant that Genma was the last person to arrive – letting himself in without knocking, because he's Genma – and Kana felt the ground was shrinking beneath her feet. It had been one thing to talk about and plan getting the group together to lay everything out on the table but, now that the time was upon her, she wished that she had an excuse to postpone it so she didn't have to confront them.

Why had talking always been so difficult for her?

Why couldn't she be more like Lee, who would literally wear his heart on his sleeve if it were anatomically possible?

Thick, tense silence hung in the air for several agonizingly long minutes after the tokujo found his seat in the worn-out easy chair that was placed off to the side. It was so quiet that Kana could hear the sounds of the wind rolling through the trees and bushes outside of the chunins' apartment, leaves rustling against one another like one of nature's many songs. It was evening, so the living room was cast in a warm light orange hue as the sun began its final descent to make way for the moon.

"If you don't want to do this…" Izumo's voice was only barely louder than a whisper as he spoke, "Kana, we can always wait -."

"No, this is something she needs to do," Kakashi said coolly from where he was still leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest and his exposed eye staring hard at the scene before him.

Kotetsu narrowed his eyes but, before he could try to rush to her aid, Kana pulled her sunglasses away from her face to set them on the coffee table and murmured, "He's right. I don't want to do this…" she leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees to keep her eyes on the floor, "I _really_ don't. But… If I don't… If I don't do this now, then I'm never gonna." Her fingers twisted at each other, pulling at the sturdy canvas fabric, "And then I'll crawl back into the shell I was in when you two met me… But, I'll _never_ come out… And… I _don't_ want to live like that again."

With a breath that shook so much that it hardly qualified as a proper inhale, Kana waited a couple of moments to build herself up.

"The noble clans always had a weird relationship. They respected each other, but there was a _constant_ power struggle," she explained slowly, trying to carefully pace out her words so she didn't rush through anything, "The Uchihas and the Shimis… They took it too far – they became obsessed with the pride and stature of the clan, instead of their primary focus being the village…" Kana felt her brow knit and stopped twisting her fingers to clasp her hands together tightly, "That's where the Kana lineage comes in."

 _"The Shimi Clan was blessed with the closest blood to the Otsutsuki Clan, the progenitors to shinobi, but the Kana line…" the elder hooked a finger under her chin so she had no choice but to meet his gaze, "You are revered as a most **precious** creature – the pride and joy of the Shimis, and your clan's ultimate weapon."_

"Most of us are already born with the Ishikigan – the Conscious Eye – and the Kurogan. It's awakened when we experience something that's especially terrible and, because we leave the womb with it, it's said that it's because our lives are destined to be so dark that being born is the worst thing we could possibly endure… It's where the title comes from. Kana Shimi – it's always written to read as 'Sadness' because we bear what they called the 'Curse of Despair', like the Uchiha 'Curse of Hatred.'"

Next to her, Raido shifted so that he was leaning back into the seat cushions, "But you were born with green eyes."

She nodded quietly, "Some of us aren't born with it right away. But the Shimi Clan is so obsessed with power, and having an active Kana, that… Instead of waiting for us to awaken it in the field, like with the Uchihas and the Sharingan…" Kana squeezed her hands together, "They created a ritual where we murder our parents, to speed up the process."

Genma swore under his breath and clicked his senbon between his teeth, and Kotetsu murmured something inaudible. Already fully aware of the macabre tendencies of her clan, Neji only sighed and tilted his face down to stare at his lap.

"I knew I would have to kill them, so I never bothered with getting close to my mom and dad… Which meant the ritual didn't _work_ ," she continued with a surprisingly steady voice, "But I still grew up hating my clan. I hated them for never seeing me as anything other than a tool - for training me for battle as soon as I could walk so they could push their ridiculous ideals onto the rest of the village for as long as they had the upper hand..."

"Because we split from the same Otsutsuki branch, our clans were pretty close, so I ended up spending a lot of my time with the Hyugas."

 _It was hot - so hot that the sweat beading on Kana's forehead was rolling down around her eyes in thin rivulets, and the sun was absurdly bright despite it only being spring, so the child scooted back further into the shade provided by the jasmine and lilac trees._

 _"What are you doing out here on your own?"_

 _She looked up from the flower she was picking apart to see a man and a woman standing just a few feet away, both wearing simple loose-fitting kimono with their long hair pulled back to hang around their shoulder blades. If the attire wasn't enough, their distinct Byakugans told Kana that they were both Hyugas. She knew that their clans were more or less distant cousins, and frequently intermingled, so she stood up from where she was sitting, dusting the dirt and grass away from the rear of her own black kimono, and bowed in greeting._

 _Instead of returning the formality, the man only chuckled and waved his hand, "Now, now, let's not waste time with being too polite," he said warmly, "It's so hot, shouldn't you be home? Remaining out in this heat can be dangerous, you know."_

 _Kana made a face. She didn't want to go home – being treated like both a deity and a slave was beginning to take its toll on the four year-old, and she wanted nothing more than to be as far away from them as possible. However, she had nowhere else to go so hiding under the fragrant trees just outside of the Hyuga Manor was how Kana chose to spend her time._

 _Seeing her bristle at the mention of going back to the compound, the woman next to him smiled gently and held out one of the hands that had been resting on her only slightly swollen belly, "First, let's have some tea. You must be thirsty from sitting out here under the sun all day, hm?"_

 _Almost as if on cue, the child's throat tightened and her mouth suddenly grew dry, having sweated out most of her body's available water supply over the last few hours of creating the chain of flowers that now rested on the ground by her feet._

 _"Kirie, we should at least **introduce** ourselves," the man scolded with a smile that was just a tender before looking back to meet Kana's gaze, "My name is Hizashi Hyuga, and this is my wife, Kirie."_

 _Hizashi… Wasn't he Lord Hiashi's younger brother? In any other scenario Kana would have walked away to a new hiding spot, but there was something calm and inviting about the couple's demeanor as they waited for a response, and they were Hyuga members so that translated to the child's mind as them being obviously safe to be with – especially if he was the little brother of the clan head._

 _"I'm Kana Shimi," she chirped, trotting up to take Kirie's still-outstretched hand in her own._

 _The couple turned their smiles from her face, to each other, then to the road as they made their way towards the gates._

"They were the only people that treated me like a normal _kid_ ," Kana explained, finally readjusting herself so that she was leaning back into the sofa, hand reaching for Neji's, "I visited them all of the time, and they would even sometimes come to the Shimi compound to take me to a lake that was outside of the village." She rubbed her thumb over Neji's palm, "And it wasn't long until I met Neji."

 _"Is he here yet?!"_

 _A particularly sour-looking old woman with her thin hair pulled back into a bun reached out with a gnarled hand to stop Kana right in her tracks before she could barrel through the double doors, "Stay away! This is no place for a child to be running about!"_

 _Hyuga births always took place within the main estate so, when Tokuma rushed over to let her know that Kirie had gone into labor, both children ran as fast as their little legs could take them over to the chamber._

 _There was a pained cry that was quickly followed by words of encouragement from a familiar voice, and she felt goosebumps race down her arms and legs in excitement. Hizashi and Kirie were having a baby! The baby was coming! Normally Kana didn't care much for babies one way or another, but this was_ _ **their**_ _child._

 _It took nearly four hours, and a lot of screaming, but eventually the four year-old felt her heart leap into her mouth when she heard the words, "Congratulations, Hizashi, you have a son."_

 _With the aid of her Kurogan she watched the midwife hand a freshly-cleaned chakra signature over to the new father, who gingerly cradled it in his arms and presented it to his wife._

 _Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes later Kirie lifted her head from the number of pillows beneath her shoulders and head to look at the door._

 _"Kana, honey? Would you –?"_

 _Both of them laughed when the child nearly broke her own wrist flinging the door open, much to the old woman's dismay, and rushing in to skid to a stop on her knees next to Kirie. There looked to be some blood on the sheets beneath her, which were drenched in sweat and gods knew what else, and Kirie looked exhausted, but it looked like the delivery went as smoothly as they hoped it would._

 _"This… Is Neji, our son," Hizashi said warmly, gazing down at the baby as if he was the sun._

 _His wife wiped at her tear-stained cheeks with the hand not holding the newborn to her exposed bosom, "Isn't he perfect?"_

 _Kana watched him owlishly, drinking in every one of his features. Neji didn't cry like most other babies did, and the moonlight that poured in from the nearby window made his tuft of brown hair shimmer as if it were made of stars and brown silk. What truly captivated her, though, was the way his eyes blearily opened to reveal the brightest, clearest white eyes that couldn't possibly belong to anyone other than an angel._

"I was convinced that I hadn't ever seen anything more beautiful in my life," she said with a soft smile at the reminder, squeezing Neji's hand when she could almost feel his embarrassed blush at the compliment, "I fell in love on the spot and played with him every chance I got. I would even carry him around during errands. Though, when Kirie died a couple of months later from a virus…" Kana's smile faded as her voice dropped down to almost a whisper, "Hizashi fell into a dark place, and I found myself taking care of him every moment I wasn't sleeping, or training."

Izumo sighed heavily and shook his head in dismay, but didn't say anything.

Raising her head to look up at Neji, Kana leaned in so she could peck him on the cheek in a silent reminder that she did what she did because she loved him, not out of a sense of obligation. He turned his face to roll their foreheads together with a squeeze of his hand, eyes somber but full of a loving appreciation.

"It was how I ended up meeting Itachi Uchiha. He was a year older than me, but I was enrolled into the Ninja Academy early so we were in the same class. When he saw me holding Neji, he asked me if I liked watching him, because his mom was about to have his little brother…" The sad smile from earlier returned at the reminder, "He was a child prodigy, like me, and we ended up bonding over that and our love for our little brothers. Itachi ended up introducing me to his cousin, Shisui, and… I guess you could say… We were the Three Musketeers."

 _"Shisui, this is Kana. She's in my class," Itachi's eyes were almost glittering as he spoke. He had been more than excited to introduce the two, and babbled about it almost all day when they weren't focusing on whatever their sensei was talking about._

 _The boy looked to be a little older than them by maybe one or two years, but the first thing Kana noticed about Shisui was how **intense** his eyes were as they stared back into hers. They weren't like a soft, pearly black like Itachi's, but a piercingly inky blue that were so dark that they looked black, unless the sun hit them at just the right angle. His eyes were also more of an almond shape than most other members of the Uchiha clan, with strikingly long lashes. _

_They were intense, but there was also a playful mischievousness in them as he extended his hand with a crooked smile that showed his teeth._

 _"Hey, it's nice to meet you, finally," he said warmly, squeezing Kana's fingers gently when she slid her palm over his for an introductory shake._

 _Heat flared in the pregenin's cheeks, and she had to fight the urge to frown when Shisui released her hand, "S-same…"_

 _Kana's eyes traveled up to the top of his head where a mop of disheveled hair flopped over his brow. Everyone she had ever seen in the Uchiha Clan had dark brown or black hair that was so straight, it almost was surreally so, but Shisui had curly hair that stuck in every possible direction. It intrigued her._

 _Following her gaze, the boy's grin widened and he ran his fingers through the unruly mess with a chuckle that made Kana's heart warm, "Yeah, it's pretty crazy, huh? I'm the only Uchiha with curly hair – my mom gave up trying to handle it." As if sensing her curiosity he finished rustling it up and tilted his head down just a tad, "Wanna touch it?"_

 _Butterflies fluttered around anxiously in the center of Kana's belly at the offer, as her cheeks continued to redden from being caught staring. She took a step forward so she could reach one hand up to his head, letting out a soft sound in the back of her throat when her fingers touched the ends of his hair. It was soft,_ _ **really**_ _soft, like a million strings of satin. Because it was so fine it seemed to get knotted easily, but it took no effort for Kana's fingers to weave through the locks and pull the invisible tangles apart, and she even followed each curl to the ends to twist and tug at them gently to be able to feel the texture._

 _After however much time had passed, Kana honestly didn't have any clue, Shisui turned his face back up with a curious glint in his eye that sent the butterflies into a frenzy._

 _"Huh, don't the Shimis all have_ _ **black**_ _eyes?" he asked, eyes seeming to dart back and forth between looking at the green ones that stared back at him. When he wasn't given any answer, he laughed and touched their foreheads together with that same toothy grin from before and said, "I guess we're both black sheep, aren't we?"_

"We were each others' best friends," Kana whispered, "We were together almost all of the time, and even would get assigned to the same missions. We never fought, or argued, though Itachi was always scolding Shisui when he would tease Sasuke to get him riled up."

A tear rolled down her cheek at the reminder of the time Shisui told Sasuke that he was always going to be stronger than Itachi, because he was the older of the two, and then took off to leave the two brothers to their own devices. Itachi complained for hours afterwards, but there was still a warmth in his eye.

"Did… Did he die the night –."

"Remember how I said that the clans had a power struggle, and the Uchiha and Shimi Clans were the ones that took it too far?" she said quietly, voice barely louder than a whisper as she interrupted Genma. When they, for the most part, nodded in unison, Kana took a deep breath and wiped at the tear that was hanging off of her chin. "A part of what held us together was that we loved our village, more than anything else. Our clans were our family, but our village was our _home_."

More tears burned at her eyes, "Itachi and Shisui were pacifists. They _hated_ fighting, and the idea of killing someone was almost unbearable for them, but they did it because they loved Konohagakure _so_ _much_. So… So when the Uchihas began to take their lust for power too far…"

 _"Hey, Itachi -?" Kana froze in her tracks when both teenagers looked over their shoulders to look at her. Their heads were bowed, and they were standing close enough for their shoulders to touch, so it was obvious that their conversation was one that wasn't ever meant to be heard by other ears. Whatever it was, though, was bad. It was really, really bad. "What's wrong?"_

 _Shisui's eyes were almost hollow and ringed in purple bruises that spoke of weeks with no sleep. His mouth, usually curled upwards in a perpetual smirk, was set into a hard, thin line that wasn't too unlike the way his brow was furrowed._

 _Next to him, Itachi's forehead was creased with worry and the usual stress lines beneath his eyes, which sparkled with unshed tears, seemed to have gotten deeper since they last spoke. He had his lower lip caught between his teeth, though it did nothing to stop it from trembling._

 _"It's nothing," Itachi lied, giving a weak smile that didn't reach his eyes, "Did you need something?"_

 _Years of friendship meant that they could always tell when one of them was lying, which rarely ever happened because they simply **didn't** lie to one another – especially Itachi. The fact that he was now, and doing such a poor job at it, sent Kana's stomach falling down to the floor as her heart began to race. _

_However, she knew that he wouldn't lie unless it was absolutely mandatory, so the jonin knew that prying would only make things worse for him. Instead, she cleared her throat and took a breath to keep her voice even, "Izumi… Was looking for you." Kana had seen her lurking around his house looking as anxious and shy as ever while waiting for her crush to come home to a surprise picnic that seemed to be largely failing._

 _Itachi only nodded and, exchanging looks with Shisui, brushed past his friend while muttering a quiet "Thank you."_

 _Kana looked back to their friend, who made no effort to hide his grim demeanor as she walked up to stand where Itachi had been only moments before._

 _"What's going on?" she whispered, eyes searching his for any sort of answer._

 _Shisui sighed heavily, as if a weight on his chest was pushing the air out of his body, and reached out to pull Kana to his chest in an embrace that trembled with tension._

 _"You're one of my most precious friends, you know?" he murmured into her hair, "I'll always be so grateful to have met you all those years ago."_

 _The somber tone in his voice struck Kana square in the chest. She tightened the arms she had wrapped around his ribs and pressed her face into his clothed chest, "Shisui, you're scaring me."_

 _There was another sigh as she could feel him make a conscious effort to still his trembling arms, but the muscles continued to quiver as they tightened around her shoulders and back to hold her so tight she could hardly breathe._

 _"I know, I'm sorry," Shisui took a shaky breath, "I'm real fuckin' sorry, babygirl. Just… Just let me stay like this for a while. Please?"_

 _Normally the pet name he used for her, coined years ago when it used to be a way to tease Kana for being the youngest in their triage, would ease any negative emotion she was feeling but, at the almost desperate, unsteady sound of his voice, the jonin felt like her heart was ripping in two._

 _Something bad just happened, or was about to happen, and both of her best friends were terrified._

 _Kana managed to squirm enough for her face to tilt up to meet his, and he took the cue and touched their foreheads together. It was their day off so neither of them were wearing their forehead protectors so she could feel the tension in his brow._

 _"Alright, let's stay here," she murmured, "But you're not allowed to kiss me, because that's real mushy. And then you gotta let me go because I'm hungry and came over here to get barbecue with you."_

 _It was a lame joke between them, because Itachi had Izumi so obviously that meant that they were stuck with each other. Shisui laughed. It was a soft, breathy laugh, but it was still a laugh that reached the eyes that he finally opened, and the vibrating in his muscles seemed to slow as he ground their foreheads together._

"It was the last time I ever saw him."

"The Uchiha Clan was preparing to launch a coup d'état against the Leaf to establish the power they thought they deserved, and Itachi and Shisui were acting as spies for Lord Third," Kana whispered, feeling Neji's fingers squeeze hers when they started to tremble, "When they realized that the coup couldn't be stopped, and it would start a civil war…"

"The council decided they had to stop it before it started," Raido finished, eyes grim.

She nodded and felt the burn of more tears as they welled up in her eyes, "D-Danzo… He took one of Shisui's eyes… Because he had a special Mangekyo Sharingan jutsu… And… H-he…" Kana squeezed Neji's hand hard enough to break that of a lesser man, "He gave his remaining eye… To Itachi… To use it… And, then… He drowned himself so Itachi could… Could awaken his own Mangekyo…"

"They made… Made Itachi kill his clan to… To stop the coup… I was supposed to help, and to leave the village to join the Akatsuki w-with him as a spy, but… He wanted to shoulder it himself…" With a shaky breath, she knitted her brow and stared at the untouched takoyaki that was still sitting on the chunins' coffee table, "I found out later that Danzo convinced him that it was better for Konoha if I stayed back. He had made a pact with a rogue Leaf-nin to hand me over in exchange for a third of the Sharingan that came from the slaughtered Uchihas, and wanted to make sure that the deal went through."

Izumo sucked air through his teeth, and Genma bit down on his senbon with a sharp _tak_. Either Kakashi and Guy already suspected that Danzo was a piece of shit, or were simply much better at masking their emotions, because neither of them seemed to react.

Neji had no such reservations, however, and scooted back on the sofa so that he could look his sister in the eyes when he asked, "Wait just a second, are you saying that Lord Danzo colluded with an enemy of the state -!?"

"Yeah, I am," she whispered.

Both Guard Platoon members folded their arms over their chests in time with one another, mouths set into matching hard lines, and the chunin were uncharacteristically silent as they waited for more information.

"I didn't know what was happening at the time but, the night Itachi left, he told me he had to run away… That I couldn't come with him, because he had to do it alone…" Kana leaned back forward to rest her elbows on her knees, "He told me to take care of Sasuke for him… So I did what I could even though Sasuke hated me."

"But if Itachi was the one that… Did what he did," Kotetsu narrowed his eyes in confusion, "Why was he mad at _you_?"

From where he was standing against the wall, Kakashi shifted and readjusted his arms, "Sasuke was only six or seven years old, and was tortured by his brother with the Sharingan," he explained, "Those are hardly grounds for rational thought."

When Izumo opened his mouth to ask the obvious, Kana felt her chest ache and cut him off. "Itachi wanted his clan to be brought to justice, so he painted himself as a monster so Sasuke would hate him. He wanted Sasuke to be the one to end his life, because he loved him more than anything else in the world. It was why he was allowed to spare his life."

Kotetsu looked visibly ill. Neji stared at the floor in horror, having never been aware of the details of what exactly happened the night of the massacre.

"I don't remember much after that," she admitted, "When I wasn't taking care of the kids, I was throwing myself into every assignment Anbu could give me. I shut myself away from everyone because… I just… Didn't want to get close to anyone else, if they were just going to be taken away like that. I think Neji was the only person that kept me together, then, and if I had never been introduced to Lee, I would have never let my guard down enough to meet you."

There was a long pause where no one said anything. The group sat in a heavy silence that seemed to weigh down on all of them until Raido uncrossed his arms to rub at his thighs before pushing himself off of the sofa.

"Grabbing a beer," he explained gruffly, prompting a round of approving murmurs as the rest of the group agreed that booze was in order with the exception of Kakashi, who decided to sit on the edge of an accent table that was apparently sturdier than it looked.

Kotetsu and Raido wasted no time in cracking open their favored dark beers from the fridge, while Guy brought the bottle of sake back into the living room with three small cups for him and his two former students. They both knew that Neji wasn't much of a drinker, as he considered it very un-shinobi-like to purposefully ingest something that they knew would lower their inhibitions, but they also knew that there were times he welcomed the idea of taking the edge off.

Now was one of those times.

Genma commandeered the chilled Jägermeister, which left Izumo with his vodka, though the chunin had the decency to pour the clear liquid over some ice in his own cup in case anyone else was interested in the bottle that he set down on the coffee table next to the sake.

A handful of collective shots later, and after a few minutes of drinking from bottles a little too hastily, the group sagged back into their respective seats with varying expressions of stress to downright depression. Kana wasn't even remotely relaxed after rapid-firing three glasses of sake but it stopped her from tapping her foot, which she hadn't even realized she was doing, so she let out a heavy sigh that told her friends that she was going to get back to business.

"You all know the rest, since you were there, but Itachi came back with his partner after the Sand and Sound invasion. He wanted to make sure that, even though Lord Hokage was dead, Danzo knew not to touch Sasuke. Then they went to Shukuba to look for the Nine-Tails."

"I don't get it, if Itachi was just a spy then why was he helping the Akatsuki get Naruto Uzumaki?" Kotetsu asked before taking a swig of beer.

Kana frowned, "After eight years of keeping them away from Konoha, you need to pretend like you're still working on their side, 'Tetsu."

She didn't mean to snap, but the tension was getting to her and her tone was particularly cold. The chunin's eyes turned downcast in response and his frown deepened as he visibly shrunk in on himself.

Goddammit.

After another sip of sake, she continued, "I tracked them through the outlying forest, and… I found out that Itachi was sick – _really_ sick."

"Terminal?"

Genma's answer was met with a silent nod. Kana didn't really feel like explaining the finer points of microscopic polyangitis so she didn't bother with elaborating beyond, "His organs were basically decaying while he was still alive."

For the first time since arriving, Kakashi visibly paled and his shoulders sagged. They weren't necessarily friends but Kana knew that he and Itachi were closer than most other Anbu operatives, having bonded over being child prodigies like with Kana, and they respected the hell out of each other. It was why Kakashi largely blamed himself for Itachi's supposed snap, and took it upon himself to keep himself in her life as a prominent pillar of support once he was gone.

"That sounds horrible…" Izumo whispered, more to himself than anyone else; he poured himself another glass of vodka even though the ice was already half-melted.

"Konoha needed him alive, though. They couldn't take the risk of their only spy dying just as the Akatsuki was beginning to get more active…" Kana rolled the empty cup in her hand just so she had something to do with her hands as she stared at the floor, "Or, at least, that's what the idea was supposed to be. One night, when I was in the barracks, I was called to Danzo's chamber, in the Root compound on the other end of Hokage Rock."

Guy stiffened.

"Remember that rogue-nin that he made a deal with?" she asked, waiting for the collective nods for continuing, "He called himself Madara Uchiha, and he was the one that formed the Akatsuki. The contract was that, once I fully awakened my advanced bloodline traits and was properly trained, that I would be handed over to the organization… Danzo used Itachi's illness as an excuse to fulfill his end of the bargain without anyone getting suspicious."

 _"Is this how you plan on protecting your precious Uchiha?! By lying in the dirt?!"_

 _A hoarse, angry noise ripped up through Kana's throat as she pushed herself up onto her knees, flinging a marked kunai over in Tatsuma's direction. He dodged out of the way silently, but didn't see the one that was connected to ninja wire behind where he was moving, and Kana teleported over to it with chakra wrapped around her fingertips, ripping through the meaty part of his calf._

 _One of Sai's ink-created tigers splashed against the wall as she lunged out of the way. Kana threw up a barrier to protect herself from the birds that tried to surround her, tails decorated with a dozen paper bombs, and flickered to his side with her katana in hand. Sharingan activated, she flickered again to stand behind him to grab the wrist he was using to slide his tanto out of its sheath. Much like any other Root agent, he only grunted when the bones snapped beneath the pressure._

 _Kana was too tired, however. She didn't notice the tiny beetle crawling up her ankle until it bit her thigh, just over the artery. Even after slapping it away she knew that the paralyzing toxin was going to kick in soon so she backflipped away from the katana that was aimed for her midsection and kicked it out of the unknown man's hand so it clattered to the floor noisily. She caught herself on her hands to spin herself back around with the momentum of the jump, throwing out both of her legs to grab the agent's neck with both of her ankles to flip him over her body with an arc to slam him into the floor of the training chamber._

 _Sai used his good arm to slather ink over his scroll. A snake appeared with an audible wet sound, quickly slithering over her leg to snap the shin just as Kana's ankles were secured around the man's neck._

 _The kunoichi cried out and used her uninjured leg to kick the Root agent away before swinging both legs back, drawing them in and using the inertia to push herself off of her hands so she could land in a standing position even as the white healing chakra worked to heal the broken bone._

 _Out of the corner of her eye Kana saw Danzo sneering._

"I hated Danzo. I hated him _so much_ ," she admitted, "I was supposed to leave in a year, so he trained me almost every single waking moment unless I was on a mission. A lot of the time I couldn't even walk back to the barracks, and had to be carried to bed."

"Is that why you pushed us away?" Raido's voice carried an unrecognizable edge to it. He set his empty bottle down on the coffee table.

Kana made a face, " _Part_ of why I hated Danzo was because, in short, he threatened to kill all of you if I so much as waved in public, because he wanted me to sever my attachments before I left, and because you would waste valuable training time."

Kakashi nodded in agreement, "Sai's been on my squad for a while, and he explained how Lord Danzo felt that emotional ties were a burden."

For half of a second she was going to have him explain why a Root agent was on Team Kakashi but, as soon as she opened her mouth, Raido asked, "So, the things you said…"

The sake cup nearly cracked when Kana's fingers twitched while rolling it. She hung her head down so her hair veiled her face from the rest of the room, "If I didn't convince you to stay away from me, he would have had you killed."

"Why couldn't you just _tell_ us?" Izumo's brow was furrowed in confusion, "Wouldn't that have made more sense than to break up with Rai and use it as an excuse to ignore us?"

"Members of Root carried a curse mark on the backs of their tongues that kept us from saying anything that could hurt Danzo's image," she said matter-of-factly, "At first it would just paralyze you but, after so many times, it eventually killed you."

Kotetsu groaned and sagged back into the sofa cushions rubbing at his face with the hand not cradling his second bottle of beer in his lap. "I feel like such a sack of shit."

"What we said to you in the forest…" Izumo looked like he was going to vomit.

 _"You don't deserve to use that sword."_

With the shake of her head Kana reached over for the half-empty sake bottle, "You weren't wrong."

"But you were only under orders -!"

"Izumo, shut up 'n let her finish," Genma muttered darkly; he stared at the floor with unfocused eyes as he took another sip of Jägermeister.

Tossing her head back so the room-temperature liquid could run down her throat, she set her empty glass on the coffee table and combed her fingers through her hair several times in a vain attempt at settling her nerves. Here came the hard part.

"Everything that happened with the Uchiha massacre didn't compare to how I felt after leaving the village," Kana whispered hoarsely, "My comrades, and my best friends, thought that I was a traitor. We were constantly on the move, running and hiding from hunter-nin, and… For so long, I just remember missing home with… With every _fiber of my being._ "

"I was in charge of intelligence gathering, so I infiltrated villages and stole information for the other members – floor plans, the village layout, guard information, any info on targets, defense protocols – so they could collect bounties…" She leaned back into the seat cushions and looked up at the ceiling, "After a few months... Pain wanted to start moving in on the jinchuriki. We started with the Five-Tails, and the Seven shortly after… Then it wasn't long before I was in Suna stealing intel on the Kazekage… At some point… I stopped feeling like I was a Konoha-nin, anymore. It was like I was just a hired gun. A _merc_ for _hire_."

Kana closed her eyes, not wanting to accidentally meet the eyes of the others in the room, "After we sealed the Three-Tails my teammate told me he found an Anbu mask on one of his assignments. He said that there was a scuffle, but no way for him to track where anyone had went or if anyone had even died. So he gave me a location, and I went out on my own."

"And that was when you first caught wind of the Anbu kidnappings," Kakashi noted solemnly.

She nodded, feeling a headache form from the tension in her brow, "After dealing with the Two-Tails, I… I snuck back into Konoha, and used my dojutsu on Raido to get me into Lady Tsunade's office so I could get the case file… I figured if _I_ knew about it, then there would already be an investigation in place…"

There was a sudden warm weight on her thigh. Kana didn't need to open her eyes to know that it was Raido's hand, but she couldn't return the gesture and curled in on herself, folding her arms tightly over her chest and squeezing her already closed eyes.

"I was on my way to Iwagakure to break in and get their report, under the guise of needing intel on the Four-Tails for Kisame, when I… Ran into Sound-nin that were too far from home," Kana decided to leave out the bit with Genma and Kankuro, "And I used my dojutsu to get the location of Orochimaru's hideout in the Land of Birds where the Anbu were being held."

"I… I found out… That I wasn't the first shinobi that the Leaf gave up for their own safety," she whispered, "I found out that Otogakure wasn't just composed of rogue-nin from other lands, but a lot of their military strength came from… From Konoha sending shinobi out on ' _Missions'_ so Orochimaru could kidnap them and conscript them into his service… Or… They would literally _sell_ orphans to him. And the Shimi clan was exiling Kanas to support their own twisted _ideals_ …"

The hand on her thigh flexed.

"The reason their invasion was so successful because most of them used to be _Konoha-nin_ … And _that_ was when the village stopped feeding him ninja."

Guy made a low, choked sound in the back of his throat. Genma swore under his breath.

"You can't be serious…" Neji breathed.

"They were supposed to hand me over, too," Kana continued, ignoring their reactions, "That's how Orochimaru found me in the Forest of Death… When I found out…" She took a deep, shaky inhale and held it for a few moments before releasing it.

"When Asuma was killed by Hidan and Kakuzu, I thought… I thought they killed the entire team…" Hot tears began to burn at Kana's eyes and she leaned forward to bury her face in her hands, "I thought you two were _dead_ , and for years I was _watching_ Itachi die a horrible, slow, _painful_ death… I would sit by him at night just to make sure he could _breathe_ … He'd vomit and cough up his own insides, and got fevers _all_ of the _time_ … Until he was little more than a walking corpse… A-and I couldn't _help_ him – all I could do was _prolong_ his suffering…"

A sob bubbled up through her throat just as the tears finally spilled over, "I was exiled from my home – my comrades hated me, and I lost _everyone_ I _loved_ … I just… I couldn't _handle_ it… Th-that was when… I found out… About Danzo's deal with Madara… How he made Danzo merge my DNA with Izumi's so I could use the Sharingan… So he could just kill an Otsutsuki… By splicing its DNA with mine, too…"

"When Madara confirmed everything that Kabuto had told me, and even told me _more_ stories of what they _did_ , I… Something inside me _snapped_ …" One hand slid back to grab a fistful of her own hair, "I-I… I… I had been hurting for so long, I was so _desperate_ … For it all to just _go away_ …"

Across the table she could hear Izumo start to cry.

"And… A-and when Itachi died… I – I couldn't… I tried – _so fucking hard_ – to help him… To keep him _alive_ , and _comfortable_ … But… Sasuke… You could see how much it hurt him to see Sasuke hate him so much… I-it was like his heart just… _Gave_ _up_."

Kana finally burst into tears at the memory of watching the battle, when she tried to teleport to Itachi's side only to realize that he had destroyed the Flying Thunder God mark, and pulled at the hair that was still in her fist, using her other hand to cover her eyes.

"I blamed the Leaf… I blamed _shinobi_. I couldn't believe that the world could be saved as long as shinobi existed. I thought… I thought if we could project the Infinite Tsukiyomi… Th-that we'd… Be saving beautiful, _perfect_ people… Like Itachi… From having to die… That we'd be righting the _wrongs_ that shinobi made…"

It was then that Guy sniffed and pushed off of the wall he was leaning against to step out of the front door.

She pulled her hands away to rest in her lap so she could stare at their blurred forms, "I became… He turned me into a monster… A jumble of _corpses_ … I'm literally _not even human anymore_ … And I _still_ helped him… Because… B-because… I needed _something_ to believe in. I wanted the world - I _needed_ to know that we could make it… To be a better place…"

There was the sound of fabric rustling against fabric as Izumo drew his knees up to his chest as his lover scooted closer to hold him, his own quiet sobs intermingling with hers.

"Why'd you come back, then?" Genma's voice was uncharacteristically low and hoarse, "What made you give that up?"

"The Anbu Commander and I -."

"I wanna hear it from _her_ , Kakashi," he nearly whispered, spinning the cap off of the bottle in his lap.

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed, leaning down so that her face was buried in the hands resting on her knees, "I – I… I'm sorry _– I'm so sorry_. I never… What happened… I never wanted… I tried to keep – to keep them away from the Leaf, but…" Kana trailed off, muffled weeping taking the place of words.

It took more than a couple of minutes for her to finally pull herself together but, when she did, Kana kept her face buried in her hands when she responded, "The jutsu Shisui had… It was called the kotamatsukami, and it was a mind-controlling one. He told me that, as much as he wanted to force shinobi to stop fighting with it, it wouldn't ever be _true_ peace. Because you can't have peace without any free will…" She pushed herself up so that her weight rested on her elbows, "When Kakashi, Commander Hiketsu and I were fighting, after they found our camp, I realized that I was killing one of my best friends… For an _illusion_ of peace… And… It was everything Shisui and Itachi fought _against_. What I was doing was just - just a _perversion_ of their ideals - of everything they stood for."

To say that it was an over simplified explanation, to say the least. It nonetheless seemed to satisfy Genma because he didn't ask anything else as a freshly-composed Guy stepped back in.

"We needed Kakashi's and that Root guy's insight, but, I think, deep down, we knew you didn't want to hurt anyone," Kotetsu nearly whispered, his deep voice husky from alcohol and stress, "We were angry with you until that day in the forest, because we were confused. We didn't understand what was happening."

Izumo nodded slowly and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand with a ragged inhale.

In the back of her mind, Kisame flashed his lopsided grin.

For the first time since Kana began to speak she looked up to meet the eyes of those still sitting in the room, "You… You've gotta understand… They're… The Akatsuki _– they aren't bad people_. They're…" she covered her mouth with her wrist, which she sobbed into as she continued, "They're just people… Who were hurting… Who were _broken_ by the world, and disillusioned. They need to be stopped, but _they aren't evil._ Th-they honestly think they're doing _good_."

A beat.

"Itachi wasn't the only one you cared for," Raido murmured. It wasn't a question.

She caught her bottom lip with her teeth and looked at anything other than the men in front of her while subtly shaking her head. There was no way for Kana to explain what exactly what went on between her and Kisame when she didn't fully understand it, herself, so her chest clenched painfully when Izumo spoke up.

"Did you love him?"

It wasn't an accusatory question, merely a curious one, but the hand on her thigh twitched involuntarily and Kana could hear Raido's breathing slow in anticipation for her response.

"I… I don't know," she answered quietly, honestly, "He was important to me…" mismatched eyes dropped to Raido's fingers, "For three years, we were all we had. Just the three of us. We _needed_ each other."

And, yet, Kana spent those three years wasting their precious time together by keeping them at arm's length. She knew how much she cared for those two, she knew how much she loved them, and she kept them pushed away out of a twisted sense of self preservation.

The weight of that knowledge weighed heavily on her chest. A feeling of dull longing nibbled at the raw edges of Kana's already ragged heart.

"All I really know..." she murmured, "Is that they were what kept the nightmares away."

Even if it would have made their separation more painful, she would give anything to go back and do things differently, if only to have the fond memories of quality time with Kisame and Itachi to look back on.

"I told you, though," Kana's hand shifted so that her fingers finally wrapped around Raido's and held his hand in a gentle hold, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm home. For good – even if I'll never be a shinobi again."

"Being a ninja is all you know," Guy responded gruffly, "How do you know you'll be able to adjust to another way of life?"

A small, tender smile tugged at the edges of her lips as the tear tracks began to dry on her cheeks.

"Because I have all of you."

"The holes of the heart are for other people to fill," Kakashi murmured, meeting her gaze with a softened expression, "And those who abandon their friends, when they need you most, are worse than scum."

Neji reached over to wipe at Kana's cheeks and smear away the tacky tear residue, "I couldn't comprehend how important it was for one to help themselves before being able to accept assistance from others, until it was almost too late," his voice held a gentle serenity as he spoke, "But you've already done your part by using tonight to apprise us. Now it's time for us to do ours."

 _"How important it was for one to help themselves before being able to accept assistance from others."_

It was at that moment that she realized that the reason Neji grew up shoving everyone away, was because he grew up watching _her_ do the same exact thing to herself – it was a revelation that slammed into her like a speeding train, and she couldn't hide her feelings of self-loathing and disgust as they clambered up her chest.

Before she could speak her horrified apologies for where she went wrong in raising Neji, there was a groan off to her right, and everyone turned to see Genma releasing a breathy laugh, "Guys… I'm too… Too drunk 'ta get up."

For a split second everyone just stared at the tokujo in shock, until Raido laughed and said, "Gen, I've known you since I was eight – you can _always_ get up."

"And _off_ ," Izumo muttered under his breath.

Kana snorted, which caused a chain reaction of light-hearted laughter to fill the room. Even Neji, who found the group's toilet humor to be too crass for his tastes, seemed thankful for the emotional reprieve and smiled with eyes closed in disbelief.

With a toothy grin and a dangerous glint in his eye, Kotetsu sprang to his feet and rounded the coffee table to scoop her up off of the couch, "Speaking of which…" he purred, "I think it's about time to welcome Kana home."

It was clearly a joke that held no real weight, but Neji's jaw dropped in an expression of abject horror at the sudden 180 the conversation had suddenly taken, as well as the insinuation that he was taking his sister away for sexual conquest purposes.

Genma placed both of his hands on his knees to push himself up into a standing position, "You're right! I _can_ get up - it's a miracle -!" He swayed a bit to the side and Raido had to act fast to keep him from toppling over. Just how much did he have to drink?

Saving both Guy and Neji from their almost nauseous expressions, Kakashi grunted his disapproval and followed after the spiky-haired chunin so he could yank him back by the collar and retrieve the woman in his arms.

"I don't think so."

Normally Kana would have found herself irritated from being carried around and being passed between the two but, given the circumstances, she rolled her eyes at Kotetsu and grinned before being set back down onto the floor.

"Alright, buddy, let's get you to bed," Raido slung one of Genma's arms over his shoulder, wrapping one around his waist, and started to haul him across the living room towards the bedroom. Really, by this point, you'd think that he would just officially move in with the chunin...

Still, Kana turned her smile up from the two tokujos to the jonin that were standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one another, whispering under their breaths. Upon realizing they were being watched, Guy looked up and extended an arm in an invitation that she took without a second thought, crossing the room and wrapping her arms around the man that adopted the role of father figure at such a young age.

One thick arm circled her shoulders while his other hand rubbed her back, "Everyone has the power to shape their own destiny," he murmured, "Even if you lost your way, you've always lived as a splendid shinobi, and your youth has yet to fade," his chest rumbled with a chuckle when Kana groaned at the mention of his trigger word, "Even if you should never don a hitai ate again, I will forever be proud to call you my little girl."

There was a profound sadness among the relief that billowed in her chest at Guy's words, "I don't know how to exist outside of being a ninja," she whispered, tightening the arms she had wrapped around his chest, "You're right - what else is there for us to live for?"

"You're asking the wrong people," Kakashi's voice was just loud enough to be audible, "I don't doubt that you'll live the rest of your life feeling as if something is missing. This is something you're going to have to overcome, and learn to live with."

Talking wasn't her forte, and she was particularly bad at talking about her own feelings, but Kana had to admit that there was a weightless feeling in her body as she let her eyes slide shut, cheek resting against her dad's chest. It felt as if a massive, physical weight had been lifted from her body after years of weighing it down, and now Kana could breathe easier than she had in longer than she could remember.

She whispered her goodbyes and left the apartment alongside Neji, who took her hand in his own with a serene look on his face.

"Neji, I'm sorry."

His eyes, which nearly glowed white in the moonlight, narrowed in confusion, "What could you possibly be apologizing for?"

Lacing their fingers together, Kana turned her face forward to take in the sight of the recently rebuilt buildings, "I didn't realize that I was teaching you to have a cynical outlook on life," she explained quietly, "It wasn't something I understood until tonight. I shouldn't have let you see me like that when you were so small."

Neji hummed, knowing he couldn't outright deny the claims that he knew to be true but unwilling to confirm them, either. Instead, he followed her gaze as they began to approach another road of buildings that were still in the final stages of being constructed, "There is something that has crossed my mind on more than one occasion," he looked back at Kana, "How were you able to find us amidst the chaos of the attack?"

Kana stopped and slowly removed her hand from her brother's, holding it out with the palm up, "Do you have my headband?"

"Of course," Neji twisted around to reach into the pack slung across his shoulders, fishing around for a few moments before producing a painfully familiar silver steel rectangle that was attached to a long strip of black cloth, dropping it into the outstretched hand before him.

A small, sad smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and she ran a thumb over the familiar ridges of the Konoha insignia that was carved into the plate. Kana could almost remember what it felt like to have the headband tied around her forehead, with the knot hidden by her hair when she still wore it in a braid for him. She could almost remember what it was like to be a true shinobi - to have that kind of title, and to wear it proudly alongside her comrades.

Kana turned the hitai ate over and carefully tugged at the fabric so that it dislodged from the steel plate, falling back to reveal a unique symbol that was roughly etched into the metal with a kunai.

"That's the same symbol on your kunai," Neji noted, eyes scanning his most recent discovery.

She nodded, handing it back to him, "As long as the mark is intact, I can teleport to this just like I could with my weapons."

Eyes shining, with the moonlight glittering in the tears that went unshed, he looked back up in astonishment, "The night you left... This was why you insisted I carry it with me."

"I used to watch the medallion you gave me after my promotion," Kana reached up to wipe away the stray tear that escaped his lashes, "I learned the patterns, and told myself that I would come to you if I thought you needed me."

"I never once saw you, though."

The sad smile she wore expanded, and turned warm as she nodded, hand sliding down his cheek to rest on his shoulder, "That's because I knew you were okay... You stopped needing me a long time ago, Neji."

Maybe it was the unspoken pride she held for him, or maybe it was just the entire night coming down to crash on him, but a soft sob broke past Neji's lips and he stepped forward to pull his sister into an embrace.

"I love you," Kana whispered, running a hand through the hair that hung around his waist, "I will _always_ love you. Don't ever forget that."


	31. Chapter 31

_'Master!'_

Kana smiled softly at the child that rushed towards her from across the Academy's playground, holding out her arms for the young child in an invitation that she eagerly accepted.

"Hey," she smiled when Yuki's arms wrapped around her waist and ran her fingers through her hair, "You okay?"

Burying her clothed, beaming face – when she had begun to wear a cloth mask was unknown to her - in Kana's belly, Yuki's shoulders rose slightly as she took a deep inhale and nodded her head. _'Does this mean I come home with you now?'_ she asked eagerly.

She frowned, "Are you unhappy living with the clan?"

Yuki nodded wordlessly without pulling herself away to look up. Kana wouldn't blame her for the feelings of near-misery that passed through their link, she had to live through their shit for years and that was _before_ one of the Kana's defected.

Still, it wasn't as if she could just take Yuki away from the clan like she did Orochimaru's compound; kidnapping charges wouldn't be doing any favors for her already shattered reputation.

"Look," Kana sighed, pulling back enough to lower herself to a crouch so she was eye-to-eye with the child, "You need to understand that... I've made mistakes, Yuki. The kind of mistakes that follow you for the rest of your life."

 _'Is that why you were in trouble?'_

Before she could ask how she knew about her imprisonment, Yuki pushed forward memories of lurking around Hokage Rock after sneaking away from the Shimi compound.

It was her turn to frown, "Yeah… They needed to make sure I wasn't still dangerous, so they had to lock me up for a while," Kana sighed and readjusted the child's kunai holster to busy herself, "They know I'm not going to hurt anyone, but the Shimi Clan is still in charge of taking care of you. I have to get permission from Lady Hokage, first, and that can take a long time."

Her heart twisted when the previously bridled feelings of misery all but burst through a metal dam between them, and Yuki pulled down her goggles to wipe at unshed tears, _'Y-you'll **try** , right? I don't **want** to be with them! I don't care about being a shinobi! They're making me graduate early - they want to take me **away** from you -!'_

"Hey, _hey_ ," Kana wrapped her arms around the small child, who flung her arms about her shoulders with a heartbreaking sob, "No one's gonna take you away, okay? If you don't wanna be a ninja, I'll talk to Lady Hokage."

It took a fair amount of willpower to put up a mental barrier between them. It wasn't enough to cut off the psychic link, and it probably wasn't even enough to get Yuki's attention, but it was enough to keep her emotions from flooding over into Kana's mind as she cried into her shoulder. Months of isolation and being, for all intents and purposes, told she was going to be commanded off to war had long since begun to take its toll on the child, and this was the first time she had allowed even a crack in her trained stony exterior.

Panic, fear, anxiety, loneliness and a whole host of other emotions that had no place in a child's heart washed over Yuki like one giant tidal wave, and Kana fought to think of something that would comfort her as she tightened her arms around that trembling body.

Then, like a speeding train, a sense of déjà vu slammed into Kana when she realized that she was in Yuki's exact same position the day after she was told she was going to be put into the Chunin Exams with Shisui. She was being separated from Itachi and, even though she still knew she would have Shisui with her, Kana went into a blind panic at the prospect of losing Guy and went on a rampage that destroyed an entire training field.

So, like Guy did when he was still a fresh-faced jonin in his late teens, she buried her face into Yuki's black hair and held her tightly.

"You're not going to lose me," she murmured, rubbing gentle circles into her back as Guy's words floated to the surface, "Since the day I met you... You've become so very precious to me - one of my most treasured people. That's why I'll always be there for you, no matter what," Kana smiled softly when Yuki's sobbing began to subside, "So... Calm down. You're going to be alright. No one's taking you away from me."

 _'B-but if we... If we aren't helping Madara -?'_

Kana pulled back enough to shake her head, "Helping the Akatsuki... That was one of the mistakes I will never be able to atone for," she pushed a lock of Yuki's hair behind her ear, "They wanted to rule over humanity, and control them. That's _not_ peace, baby..." Kana's hand trailed down her cheek, cupping her chin, "I should have never taught you - "

"Mistress Kana! With whom are you speaking with -?!" the Shimi nursemaid stopped in her tracks when Kana looked over her shoulder to meet her gaze, "Oh, h-heavens…"

"Her name is _Yuki_ , Rei," she nearly growled while rising to a standing position, simultaneously pissed about being interrupted and for being reunited with her old caretaker "You can't slap a _title_ on her like you did me."

Confusion was written into every wrinkle on the hag's face until, after several seconds of silence broken by a balmy wind rolling through the schoolyard, recognition finally set in and her jaw went slack in shock, "Mistress..? Wh-what…?"

Stepping in front of Yuki, who habitually touched her hand to the back of her thigh, Kana pulled her mask down around her neck and pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, "Miss me?"

Black eyes widened as her astonishment grew, emphasized only by the way she gasped and sputtered.

When they believed Kanas were reincarnations of Otsutsuki members, she could only imagine how Rei was struggling to comprehend that one of them had somehow turned into the near-clone of their alien ancestors. Otsutsukis were revered as deities – practically worshipped as gods. So, while other members of the village wouldn't be able to recognize the physical attributes of the lineage, anyone in the clan knew what it meant to come across someone with the Rinnegan, or Byakugan, and hair so light it was nearly white in color.

Rei's reaction was both comical, and sad. Kana could almost see the internal war waging in her head: Did she scold her for speaking to the child after betraying the village? Did she revere her as an Otsutsuki? What did her presence mean?

"I'll be taking Yuki home today," she said coolly, "I need to speak with the elders, anyways." Kana looked back at the little girl while pulling up her mask, "Ready?"

There was a warm sense of satisfaction in Yuki's chest when she nodded, swollen eyes crinkling with her hidden smile. She slipped her hand into Kana's and jumped up to the rooftops with her, seemingly unsurprised by the Anbu escort that met them.

"I've got some business to deal with," was all she said before stepping into the Kamui and using her chakra to locate exactly where her grandfather was located.

As expected he was all but lounging around in the garden that housed the shrine where any number of sick rituals were performed. He nearly choked on his pipe when Kana and Yuki appeared by his side in a swirl of black and white, and actually dropped it to the stone walkway when he realized who he was staring at.

Kana gave him no chance to ask questions or explain himself, gripping fistfuls of his kimono and hauling him in the direction of that damnable shrine. There was the sound of his brittle old bones snapping against the stone wall that cracked beneath the force of his weight and, briefly, Kana considered simply using his body to destroy the entire foundation as she stepped over to where he crumpled to the ground.

"Literally the _only_ reason I won't snap your neck is because I understand that the clan needs a leader," she spat, crouching over his body, "As pissed as I am, though, I can't guarantee I won't accidentally lose control of myself so I'd listen _real_ fucking close if I were you."

Kana grabbed his kimono again and ignored his pained groans as she pulled his upper body up so that their faces were close enough for her to smell the cancerous stench of his smoky breath, "Changes are going to be made. This _shrine_ –?" she stepped back to haul him up and slam him back into the wall, "It's not gonna be used anymore. Exiling my brothers and sisters to preserve your own _selfish_ ideals -?!" this time, the clan elder's skull made a sickening cracking sound when it bounced off of the stone, "It's gonna stop."

Blood splattered across her cheek and neck when her grandfather coughed, eyes rolling back as he struggled to maintain coherency after suffering three head traumas in succession.

"Wh-what -?" he spat out a wad of blood and saliva onto the ground with a smirk much too haughty for his current predicament, "What makes you think that we'll just… Give into your demands, hm? You may bear characteristics of our forefathers, but you are still just a _child_. You have no power here!"

With an agitated growl, Kana yanked him away from the shrine and hurled him at the manor on the other side of the garden. It wasn't reinforced with chakra like the shrine was, so it crumbled beneath his body and he passed through, bouncing and rolling across the paneled flooring like he was just another piece of the shattered rubble.

Before his body had even stopped sliding across the hall, Kana had flickered over to his side and pulled him to a halt. She dropped to all fours, hovering over his torso like a jungle cat would crouch over its prey, and brought her masked lips down to rest on the shell of his ear.

"Because, otherwise, I'll slaughter each and every one of you sick fucks that ever tried to use us as your dogs," she hissed, paying little mind to Yuki as she ushered other clan members away, "How long do you think you'll last in the Tsukiyomi? My friend actually killed his girlfriend by putting her in it for about twenty _years_ , but you know how long that is in real time?" Kana turned her face just enough so he could feel the heat of her breath through the mask, "A _second_. And I could spend _all day_ playing with _you_."

"Captain?"

Mismatched eyes blinked.

Kana pulled away from the clan elder to look over her shoulder to see a familiar upside-down face peeking at her from the hole in the wall.

"Sai?"

"What… Are you doing?" the Root agent's voice was curious, as opposed to accusing like how any normal person would sound, and he raised an eyebrow in confusion.

Slowly, she looked back down at the unconscious man beneath her, then back up at Sai, as she realized she was being interrupted for the _second_ time in under an hour, "Why are you on the roof of the Shimi manor?" It was probably better to shift the attention away from her current situation for now.

Sai frowned, "I was on my way back from purchasing ink, and I heard an explosion."

That's right, didn't the Shimis run a special art supply store in this area?

Well, shit.

"Why are you assaulting a clan elder?"

Yuki looked back and forth between her master and the newcomer she didn't recognize, unsure of how to respond to the situation.

Kana rose to a standing position, patting away the dust on the abominable pants she wore for the sake of innocent villagers, and beckoned for her student to follow her as she stepped over the rubble. When she got to where Sai was still hanging, she touched their foreheads together with a frown. "Let's… Not tell anyone about this," she muttered.

He hummed thoughtfully, eyes locked on hers for several seconds as he tried to make sense of the situation.

"I suppose there's no point in getting you into any trouble when I need to discuss something rather important with you," he murmured, seemingly more to himself than anyone in the general vicinity, "Maybe this is just a happy turn of fate."

And, then, Sai did something that made Kana take a step back in shock.

He _smiled_.

It wasn't the carefully thought-out smile he used when he wanted to appear pleasant or on high spirits, but one that was warm and kind and made his eyes crinkle at the edges.

Sai was _smiling_.

It melted Kana's heart.

She lifted a hand to Sai's cheek, biting her lip against the emotions that began to gnaw away at her heart. "Yuki."

Knowing Yuki didn't need any further instruction, she climbed through the hole in the wall and jumped up to the rooftops before the Anbu escort could track her to the manor.

* * *

"I… I don't understand…"

Kana's eyes were fixated on the table between them. One of her arms was wrapped around Yuki's waist, who was sitting in her lap with her head on her master's shoulder, and her other hand was rolling chopsticks between her fingers. The child was still suffering from the tail end of her breakdown just a couple hours earlier, and seemed to grow exponentially more anxious for every moment that passed that she wasn't touching or looking at Kana. So, to pacify the child, she allowed her to curl up in her lap like a toddler would.

They had ended up finding themselves at Yakiniku Q2 and were grilling a medley of meat, vegetables and tofu (Which was only ordered because she knew how passionate Sai was when it came to well-made firm tofu dishes). Sai didn't care much for alcohol so he sipped at his glass of water while Kana had already downed nearly half an entire bottle of soju.

"I wanted to come to you sooner about this, but was unsure of what kind of state your mind was in," he answered softly, eyes downcast, "I had only Kakashi-senpai's updates to go off of, which have become increasingly infrequent as the war draws nearer."

Senpai?

Had she any other frame of mind, Kana's lips would have twitched upwards.

She reached out to turn a tofu square over, "And you're absolutely certain?" Kana nearly whispered, "This isn't just some assumption?"

It was a question that didn't need to be answered. Above all else, Sai was a member of the Anbu Black Ops, and wasn't a person that spoke of rumors, or hunches, as absolutes unless there was undeniable proof behind them.

"Sakura was able to retrieve birth records on my behalf, thanks to her relationship with Lady Tsunade," he explained, nudging some radishes off to the side so they could stay warm without becoming burnt.

The fact that basically the entirety of Team Kakashi had been filled in long before she was rubbed her the wrong way, but this wasn't really the time for growing irate over something as petty as the order that information was relayed in.

No, there was something much more important that weighed heavily on her mind.

Kana pulled a few pieces of meat off to the side and motioned for Yuki to start eating while they talked, "Then… You know that I was the one that killed your parents."

Sai hummed.

"Sai…"

"It's alright."

Finally lifting her gaze, Kana had to drop her metal chopsticks before she accidentally stabbed them through the wood, "How can you _say_ that?"

Yuki paused in struggling to wedge a sliver of meat and cabbage under her mask - she would have to take a crash-course in eating with a mask later – at the edge in her master's voice.

Having been allowed much more time to process the situation, Sai only smiled softly, albeit sadly, and sipped at his water, "I _wanted_ to grieve our parents, but you have to remember that I wasn't old enough to know our parents. I was sent to the orphanage when I was still a baby that was much too young to form memories of even their faces."

"But it's _my_ fault that you were taken to the orphanage," Kana protested, "If I hadn't done what I did, you wouldn't have spent your childhood alone, for _years_ , until…" she tightened the arm still wrapped around Yuki's midsection, "Until that monster – that piece of _shit_ – plucked you up off of the street to turn you into… Into…"

"A robot?" he finished, eyes kind. Sai nudged more food to the sides of the grill before setting his chopsticks on a napkin so he could reach over and rest his hand over her own. "Don't worry, I don't mind," he added when Kana opened her mouth again to voice her disapproval like she normally did when others called Root members robots.

She looked back down at the table where their hands were joined, noting how the skin that peeked out beneath her sleeve was nearly identical to Sai's, before looking back up at the warm expression he was looking back at her with.

Who taught him to smile like that?

"You want to be blamed for everything bad that's happened, Kakashi-senpai explained this to me, but what if I don't want to blame you?" he continued without giving Kana a chance to argue, "I've never known family – _true family_. I have no wish to ruin this with unnecessary feelings of hostility."

Who… Who taught him to be so _human_?

"I understand that I will never be what Neji is to you - "

"Don't say that," Kana cut him off, brow knitting, "Sai, you're…" she finally turned her hand upwards so their gloved fingers could wrap around each other, "You're my… My brother…"

That was when the tears decided to spring to her eyes. How she still had tears to spare, after everything that had happened in recent months, was beyond her, but Kana's eyes still managed to squeeze them out in fruition, blurring her surroundings.

This was her _brother_. Sai, the teenager sitting across from her, was her _brother_. _Her baby brother_.

Yuki took the subsequent pause to wrap her arms around the woman's neck, pressing their clothed cheeks together in an embrace that reminded Kana of just how small she was. Despite having had this child by her side for over a year, it seemed that she still forgot that she was, in fact, still just a child.

She pressed back into Yuki's head, feeling the top of her baby-soft cheek brush against her nose.

"I told you… Didn't I?" Kana's throat was tight as she murmured into Yuki's hair, "You were… You were always my favorite. I didn't spend all that time with you outside of the barracks for nothing, you know."

Sai's hand squeezed hers, and he smiled warmly, obviously content with her response, before turning his eyes down to the child that was making a valiant attempt at cuddling her master to stave off unshed tears, "I don't believe we have been formally introduced, yet..."

Turning away from the hair her face was buried in, Yuki looked over her shoulder to meet Sai's gaze, who only looked mildly surprised went the cold sensation of icy water washed over his consciousness.

Kana released Sai's hand to pick up her chopsticks, suddenly absolutely ravenous. When was the last time she ate? After the training session with Guy the other day?

Watching the two converse telepathically was… Interesting, to say the least. It mostly just appeared as if they were in the middle of a staring contest where, instead of trying to make the other person laugh, they just subtly shifted facial expressions as they relayed whatever line they were thinking.

Was it as comfortable for other outsiders like it was for her?

Sai's eyes flickered over to her face for a second. Were they talking about her?

Yuki blushed and looked away.

Kana frowned, popping some meat and grilled radish into her mouth.

* * *

 **Note** : Yay, famiry.

Also, thanks for those of you that still leave reviews (Or PM me reviews. They're just as cool).

Y'all are the real MVPs.

And if you're missing the Akatsuki, and if you like eSports, I made an AU fic with both of those. It seems pretty okay so far.


	32. Chapter 32

**Note** : So I've been having a really difficult time with the direction I want to take this story in. I have two parts written out, that go in wildly opposite directions, but cannot decide on which one I want. We can give Kana the perfect white-picket fence life with Raido, or we can have her take another road that, albeit a little harder at first, will end up with her just as happy in the end. Even if it's a little bittersweet. Y'all PM me with some rather... Heated opinions, so now's the time to let your voice be heard. Anyways. Onwards.

* * *

"I'm sorry, baby."

Kana stared down at the forehead protector in her hands, rubbing the fabric between her thumb and forefinger.

" _Are_ you, though?" her voice was too tight to manage anything louder than a whisper, " _Are_ you, _really_?"

In the end, this was all that was left of shinobi that died in war. Their loved ones were left with their headbands and, at the very best, a headstone. But he wouldn't be getting a headstone, would he?

Next to her, Guy's shoulders were stiff and his mouth was set into a hard line. He could hardly bring himself to raise his darkened eyes up to meet his daughter's, but he did so anyways because he needed her to understand just how sincere he was.

"You know I am, Kana."

Pale, tattooed fingers – notoriously cold from poor circulation inherited from her mother – wrapped around the hitai ate tight enough for the tips to become discolored. She wanted to squeeze until she bled, but her blood would stain the fabric and she wanted to maintain the headband exactly as it was, scuffs along the steel plate and all.

There weren't any tears to be shed. It seemed that a human truly could simply… Run out.

Not like it would help the cold sensation of pain that gnawed at the edges of her still-healing heart. It wouldn't stop her stomach from twisting violently, as if her insides were trying to tear themselves apart just so she could have some sort of release.

Kana finally tore her eyes away from the neatly folded clothing in her hands, "Why did you bring me these?" she asked through clenched teeth.

Guy nearly flinched from the sheer amount of vitriol in his words, but stood his ground, "I know what he was – I know what he meant to you…" He took a breath, "I knew you would have wanted a memento –"

" _I wanted him_ _ **alive**_ _!_ "

This time, Guy did flinch.

"I wanted him alive, and safe, and happy!" Kana threw his belongings against the wall of her apartment, where they crumpled to the floor with a muted thud, "Don't tell me you're _sorry_! _You_ did this! You could have done something – _anything_!"

Her muscles quivered with rage, or despair, or hatred, she didn't know which, as her words cut into her father's chest like kunai.

"Don't think I wasn't thinking of you when it happened. I never forgot what you said that night," Guy's glittered with unshed tears and, for once, they weren't of pride, or joy. There was a frenzied panic behind the raw anger that Kana was looking at him with. It wasn't like the same anger he was presented with when he confronted her after her first fight with Kotetsu in the market, but something that reminded him that she was still teetering on the edge of darkness, even if it seemed like things were okay on the surface.

"I knew this would hurt you, and I _am_ sorry, baby. I am _so_ _sorry_ ," he reached out to touch her shoulder, only to have his hand slapped away, "He was a man who lived and died as a true shinobi – he was someone that was willing to protect his nindo with his last dying breath. I can only imagine what it had been like to have the honor of knowing a man like that -"

Kana bit through her lip. She released a hoarse, animalistic sound and shoved Guy hard enough to put him back on his heels, "Shut up! You think pretty words fixes this?! You didn't know him! _No one knew him_ – and now no one ever _will_!"

And she spent so much of their precious time by wasting it and pretending like she didn't give two shits out of some misguided sense of self-preservation.

"You're right, no one knew him like you did," Guy straightened himself and watched Kana drop to her knees to pick back up his belongings, "I'm not sorry for performing my duty as a jonin of the Hidden Leaf, but I _am_ sorry for being responsible for you having to suffer through the loss of someone precious."

The fabric of his cloak still smelled like him.

It was cruel.

Kana looked over her shoulder, the material remains of Kisame cradled to her chest, "I don't want to see that look in your eye."

Guy's expression was both confused and helpless.

"You're the last person I need to pity me," she hissed.

Once fury settled in your heart, it didn't take long to destroy everything in its path, and the pain of loss was like a wind that rolled in from the coast to push the flames even further. All that was left at the end, when the smoke finally cleared, was a ravaged landscape that would take years to repair.

Years that shinobi didn't have.

That was why, when Guy stepped through the door of Kana's apartment, he couldn't find it within himself to blame her for looking at him with eyes that flashed with every ounce of regret and anger that shook her body.

He stood outside her door, listening to the keening that was muffled by the cloak she held to her face, as if doing so would allow him to share her grief.

* * *

Several hours had passed before Kana finally came to her senses.

The sun was rising.

She pulled the closet doors shut and burrowed back into the cloak that was wrapped around her form, head pillowed by the pants that were still folded. Her fingers had long since gone numb from squeezing Kisame's hitai ate so tightly to her chest.

Did she bury his things and give him a proper burial? Kana would bet that his body was left to the elements on that infernal tortoise island where he was murdered. Would he want a burial? How did Kiri-nin honor their dead?

Dead.

Kisame was dead.

She screwed her eyes shut, which were sore and swollen.

He would want to be home. Kisame loved Kirigakure, even if he never outright said it.

 _"I'd be sad if you died."_

Kisame wasn't awful at expressing his fondness for things, like she initially thought when she first got him to open up about the scars on his shoulder.

 _"You're not allowed to forget me."_

No, he knew exactly how to express just how much he loved something. Kisame just didn't need to outright say it, like others did.

Kana heard Guy shift outside of her apartment door before the faint sounds of footsteps reached her ears; he probably had to go report for duty at the standby station.

She ran her thumb over the etches in the plating of his forehead protector. This would go home to the Hidden Mist. Kana would find a special spot for him in the village and put it there; she'd make sure it would be a place where he wouldn't be disturbed.

"I miss you," she whispered, "I'm… I'm sorry… For wasting our time together."

Another fresh wave of despair crashed over Kana as her broken voice cut through the deafeningly silent air. She missed him. She missed him the second he was given that assignment that had him disappearing out of her life. She missed the glint he would get in his eye when he knew he got her riled up over something silly. She missed the way Kisame would challenge her, and keep her on her toes.

Admitting it was supposed to be a part of the grieving process, but no one ever told you how to deal with grief. They made it out to be a quick fix. Like the flip of a light switch.

She rolled onto her back as another sob made its way up her sore and hoarse throat. Kana's eyes were as bloodshot as they could be, but they still managed to push out more tears that rolled back into her hairline.

"I miss you, I miss you, I miss you," she whimpered, pressing the hitai ate to her lips, as if Kisame could somehow hear her.


	33. Chapter 33

The sun stung Kana's eyes as she walked across the rooftop of some store that sold housewares. It was absurdly bright for it only being eight in the morning, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky to protect her from the summer rays that beat down on her. If it wasn't already covered by long black sleeves and uncomfortable tight pants, her skin would probably burn to hell and back.

She jumped across a street to the next building, which looked to be one of those apartments that was built on top of whatever business the family ran. Kana wasn't really sure where she was going this early in the day, since it was the one day a week that she gave Yuki time to rest from training, but she knew that she needed to pull herself out of the closet and do _something_.

So now Kana was strolling across rooftops with no real direction.

Just like her life.

No purpose. No goal to strive to achieve.

Just… Going through the motions of simply existing.

Mismatched eyes glanced down at the villagers that hustled and bustled their way through the streets as she jumped over to another roof. _They_ all had something to do – children to raise, businesses to manage, missions to take, dreams to aspire to.

Kana had nothing.

She didn't even know where to start.

How did people function like this?

It wasn't long before she was looking at the jonin standby station, which seemed to be constantly busy now that shinobi had finally been grouped into platoons for the Allied Shinobi Forces and deployments were starting. Apparently Kakashi was one of the generals chosen to lead a short-to-mid-range battle division.

It would probably just a few weeks, maybe a few months, before everyone she knew was dead.

Kana fell into a crouch, wrapping her arms around her knees as she watched shinobi of every rank pass by, each looking just as anxious as the last.

Fine, be anxious.

It doesn't matter.

You'll all be dead soon.

Everyone. Raido, Lee, Kotetsu, Sai… They'd all be taken away while Kana was kept in Konoha.

Like a broken tool that had too much sentimental value to throw away.

An overwhelming sense of hopelessness and grief twisted at her insides, like her body was trying to physically wring itself dry of the pain that was so deeply embedded into her core that it had manifested itself into a physical part of her body that needed to be expunged. It felt like she was being literally torn apart.

Kana's eyes grew sore, but no tears formed.

When had life become so burdensome?

How long had her stomach felt like an empty pit?

She felt Kakashi's chakra signature before he jumped up to the rooftop, landing on one knee.

"Sitting here won't help them."

Kana turned her face away, "I should be able to do something."

He reached out to hold her shoulder, but she twitched out of his reach. Kakashi sighed and retrieved his hand. "Kana, what do you think would happen if you were to go into the middle of a war that you helped put into motion?"

The fact that she helped start this is exactly why she should be putting forth the effort into seeing it put to an end.

"How many comrades do you think will die in front of you before you finally snap?" Kakashi's voice was grim and authoritative, like it was the first time he spoke with Guy about Lee learning to open the Gates, "You're barely holding yourself together, as it is. Do you really think that you will be able to handle war without rethinking your decision to abandon the Infinite Tsukiyomi plan?"

Kana bit her lip.

"What do you think will happen to that little girl when that happens? Children need stability –"

She finally turned to meet his gaze, "You think I don't _know_ that?" Kana sprang to her feet, "You think I don't know what I could've done to her?! What I've _already_ done?!"

Kakashi pulled himself to his feet to meet her frustrated gaze with his own, "No, I know you're fully aware of the kind of damage that's been inflicted. But that child looks at you like you're _god_. As much as you want to throw yourself to the front lines, you need to think about what _she_ needs."

With a sardonic laugh, Kana ran a hand through her hair, "What she needs? What she _needs_?!" She laughed again, "Did you _see_ what Neji used to be like?! Have you even _heard_ of what Sasuke's been doing?! I have a pretty good track record of letting kids get _fucked up,_ Kakashi! Shit –" Kana gestured in the direction of the Shimi manor, "I _killed_ the parents of my _actual_ brother!"

Kakashi didn't miss a beat, "Is that why you haven't made an attempt at petitioning for custody, like you promised?"

She froze.

Of course he knew about that – Kakashi was directly involved with her case, and the Anbu escort team would be required to report something like the conversation Kana had with Yuki the day she picked her up from school. It made sense that he would check up with the Fifth to see if she had actually made the attempt to adopt her.

"You feel directly responsible for what happened to those three, and you would rather have the clan raise her so you don't have to have the burden of yet another damaged child on your shoulders."

No angry quip. No violent lashing out. Kana's teeth ground against each other as she stood stock-still, completely silent.

She had no response to that.

Because he was absolutely right.

Kakashi's cool gaze softened around the edges, "You're the only mother that little girl has ever known, whether you like it or not."

 _"I am not your sister, or mother figure."_

Mismatched eyes drifted over to where the academy was, "I told her when we first met…" Kana swallowed against the lump in her throat, "That she's just my tool."

"You have time to fix the mistakes you've made."

"Yuki's about to go to _war_ , Kakashi," she watched the bustling shinobi in the streets, "I ran out of time the minute I brought her home."

Instead of keeping her safe, Kana simply brought the lamb to slaughter.

* * *

"You haven't been sleeping, have you?"

Kana didn't look away from the window to answer his question, "No."

"Has something changed?" she could hear Inoichi shift in his chair, "You seemed to have shown improvement in recent weeks."

Too mentally exhausted to say anything snarky to remind him that the entire world was at war, Kana allowed her eyes to travel back up to the ceiling. She was lying on her back on the sofa in Inoichi's office, so her options were limited in where she could look. "Guy killed Kisame."

Tapping filled the air; Inoichi was writing something on his stupid clipboard.

"Your father killing your lover isn't something I imagine anyone would be able to take lightly…" He paused, "How did you find out?"

Kana's eyes narrowed at the ceiling, "He brought me Kisame's belongings to tell me himself."

"That's honorable of him to do."

They were both honorable men.

One just wasn't given enough time to prove it.

"What do you plan to do with his things?"

"I want to take his headband back to the Hidden Mist…" she took a shaky breath, "He missed being home."

More tapping, "You seem to know a lot about Mister Hoshigaki."

Kana's gaze flitted over to where Inoichi was peering at her from behind his clipboard, "Of _course_ I did," she hissed, "I spent _three years_ getting to know him while we were being hunted down like _animals_ – what part of that don't you understand?!"

Ever the experienced psychiatrist, Inoichi seemed entirely unphased by the sudden onset of hostility. Instead, he set the clipboard down in his lap so he could lean forward with his elbows on his knees. "Kana, I'm going to ask you something and I want you to answer as honestly as possible with the understanding that nothing you say here will result in any form of negative consequence."

Her glare intensified with the addition of suspicion.

"Had Kisame survived his encounter with Might Guy – say, he managed to escape or the altercation never occurred – what would you expect to happen?"

Turning her gaze back up to the tiled ceiling, Kana felt her entire body stiffen.

 _"It would make sense that we stick together."_

"We wanted to run away."

A brief shift in the chakra in the room told of his alarm, but Inoichi kept his voice even as he asked, "You were planning to leave the Hidden Leaf to be with a member of the Akatsuki?"

"I was planning to _die_ , Inoichi!" she snapped, "I was planning on being executed for crimes against the state!" Kana swung her legs down to pull herself into a sitting position to glare at him, "I promised Kisame we could go back to Kirigakure and raise Yuki together if I wasn't killed, though, and now I don't know what to do because _I_ was supposed to be the one that died! _I_ was supposed to die, not _him_! And now I'm stuck here taking care of Yuki on my own and avoiding Raido because I don't know how to face him and I just… I just…"

Having lost most of her steam, Kana grit her teeth and buried her face in her hands, "I'm so tired of crying, and being sad, _all of the time_ … But it seems like _every_ time I start to adjust, something else happens and I'm right back at square one… And I just… I just want it to stop."

There was a tense silence between the two after that. Inoichi didn't scribble any notes, or ask any questions, and simply allowed Kana to simmer in the ache in her chest for several moments.

"I've always known what to do," she finally whispered into her palms, "Now I'm just… Lost."

Inoichi sighed and removed his clipboard from his lap so set it on the desk behind him. "Alright, we'll take this one at a time. Miss Shimi, have you been experiencing suicidal thoughts since returning to the Hidden Leaf?"

Pale hair swished back and forth, "I couldn't do that to Neji, or Yuki." Kana was all that little girl had.

"I'm not asking if you plan to act on these impulses, I'm asking if you've thought about it," Inoichi's voice was cool, like water, and it was obvious that he had asked this question more times in his career than he could count.

A pause.

"Sometimes... I wonder if it would've been better if Kabuto and Orochimaru never found me," she admitted, voice only barely louder than a whisper.

Looking up from her hands, Kana could practically see Inoichi's brain file away that bit of information to handle later before he asked, "And you say that you've been avoiding Raido Namiashi? I was under the impression that you two agreed to continue a romantic relationship."

Of course they had. Raido had been very clear that he was more than thrilled with the idea of rekindling what they used to have, and frequently called her apartment or showed up at her door to see about enjoying the evening together. To say that he was doing his part was an understatement – Kana was pretty sure the only reason Raido didn't bring up marriage was because he knew that it was one of the _last_ things she needed right now.

"I fell in love with another man, Inoichi," she whispered.

"But, do you still love _Raido_?"

Kana thought back to the day of Pain's attack on Konoha. Of the way it felt like the planet had simply stopped moving when she saw Raido face-down amongst the rubble that littered the ground, literally minutes from death. She remembered how she begged him to hold on to what little flicker of life he still had.

She remembered how the first thing Raido did upon waking up was reaching out to touch her face.

"I do… I love him _so_ much," Kana bit her lip, "But I feel like I betrayed him, and now I'm betraying Kisame every time I see him." And by feeling guilty about Kisame, she was, in turn, betraying Raido.

Kana deserved neither of them.

"That's not surprising, given your history with holding onto deep-seated guilt," Inoichi sat back in his chair and crossed his legs, "But a relationship is more than just how _you_ feel – you need to consider Raido's feelings, as well. Have you thought about talking to him about this?"

She didn't answer, and thankfully it seemed more of a rhetorical question that was mostly to prompt thought, than one that was supposed to actually be answered.

"Just because you love one person, doesn't mean you love the other any less, as common of a thought process as it is for those who lose loved ones," Inoichi's gaze softened, "You don't have to forget Kisame, and what you felt for him, in order to move on with your life."

A dark, wry smirk tugged at Kana's lips, "I thought therapists weren't supposed to offer advice."

He grinned, "To be fair, there's a difference between blatantly offering advice, and being directive."

"Directive," she echoed hoarsely.

"You're trying to change the subject, Kana."

Dammit.

Inoichi repositioned his legs, "That's fair enough, I wanted to tackle the issue of that child you rescued from Orochimaru's base in the Land of Birds. You said her name was Yuki?"

Kana nodded silently.

"And you've continued to take care of her since returning home?"

"I feed her, train her, spend free time with her, and take her to and from school," she frowned, "I don't fucking know what counts as taking care of a kid, anymore, but that's what I've been doing."

Though, Yuki was apparently close to being either kicked out of the academy or promoted to genin. As skilled as she was, it seemed that the administration was having trouble with determining if she would be fit to be a shinobi even if she didn't know how to speak.

"I'm afraid that no one _really_ knows what it means to raise a child," Inoichi chuckled, "Myself included. It sounds like you've got most of the bigger points covered, however."

Kana laid back down on the couch, this time on her side, "But she doesn't live with me. She lives with the clan. And I'm not fit to be a parent."

"Do you consider her to be your _student_ , or your _child_?"

At the jonin's question, she had to take a moment to step back and observe just how far down her throat Kana had jammed her own foot.

Inoichi didn't wait for a response before adding, "Because, with Neji, Sasuke and Lee, you always referred to them as your younger brothers. You mentioned how Tenten is also something of a younger sibling, by proxy," he shifted, "However, with Yuki, you've been speaking of her during our sessions in a way that tells me that you see her in a different light."

Another pause.

"It doesn't matter," Kana pulled up a pillow to hug it to her chest, "I told Yuki when we first met that she's just my student. Nothing more."

"Do you think she agrees with that?"

 _"That child looks at you like you're_ _ **god**_ _."_

"Or, better yet, do you _still_ agree with that?"

 _"You're the only mother that little girl has ever known, whether you like it or not."_

Kana didn't answer, keeping her gaze on the carpeted floor.

Inoichi sighed, "Tell me, if you were given the choice, under different circumstances where maybe you were more mentally fit to take on that kind of responsibility, would you accept full custody of Yuki Shimi?"

Mismatched eyes flitted up from the floor.

"In a heartbeat."

* * *

In the time spent back home, Kana came to learn that Yuki was a very tactile person. She was always touching new things she came across, whether it be a weapon or an animal, or even food. It seemed like the only way she could become familiar with something was to actually put her hands on it and learn its different textures.

It was also the way she expressed affection, and she was currently all but climbing Sai's body like a tree.

That much had actually genuinely surprised Kana. With anyone else, Yuki sort of made a point out of not touching people and actually looked almost to be on edge with anyone that was unfamiliar. When they were shopping for groceries the day before, Kana had to actually give her a direct order to leave her weapons at the manor.

When it came to Sai, though, it seemed that she had warmed up to him almost immediately. It was almost ironic.

Once Yuki was properly latched onto his back, tiny pale arms and legs secured around his torso, he smiled and plucked a piece of tempura off of the plate to blow on it for a moment before offering it to her, "Careful, it's hot."

Such a beautiful smile…

Shinobi or not, Yuki was still a seven year-old. She enthusiastically popped the whole shrimp into her mouth and, upon biting through the layer of breading, proceeded to whimper as the still-sizzling layer of oil resting just beneath it burnt her tongue and roof of her mouth.

Kana rolled her eyes and looked back down at the vegetables she was wrapping into a spring roll, but Sai looked positively horrified – or, well, as horrified as an emotionally-stunted teenager could look – and attempted to twist around to look at her. "Why would you - I told you that it was hot!"

Four days later, and Kakashi's and Inoichi's words had struck a nerve that run deeper than Kana initially realized. She wasn't so much planning to just abandon Yuki to the clan, but she didn't trust herself as a person to be able to properly raise a child. Kana was a killer. Not a parent.

But she was also very selfish.

Yuki made her feel better.

Kana didn't even notice it at first, not really. It wasn't until after she walked Yuki home from school, and walked into her empty apartment, that she realized how… Heavy she felt. The feelings from when she was roaming the village would come back one-by-one, and it wasn't long until she was curling back into Kisame's cloak in the closet as if it would shield her from the sheer amount of hurt that attacked her from all sides.

And, the next morning, Yuki would show up for training.

It wasn't like everything went away – there was no way that one person could eradicate that much darkness – but it felt like everything hurt a little less. It felt a little less like the world was coming down on her.

Neji nearly flickered over to the sink to retrieve a glass of water, holding it to Yuki's lips to cool the scalding piece of shrimp before it could sear the rest of her mouth.

"You mustn't be so hasty," he said chidingly.

"Neji is right, you'll only choke, or continue to burn yourself," Sai frowned disapprovingly.

Yuki's cheeks puffed out from the mouthful of water, and Neji was quick to wipe at her chin when a little of it dribbled out upon swallowing. Her eyes flashed happily when he pecked her on the cheek before returning to the counter to start placing the food into a basket.

Once she was done chewing, Yuki made a little noise and peered over Sai's shoulder expectantly, who simply smiled and plucked an orange slice from the basket to pop it into her open mouth.

Kana's lips twitched upwards, and she shook her head as her fingers arranged another bunch of vegetables. It didn't take those two too long to start spoiling the hell out of her, that was for damn sure.

Upon spending an entire night mulling over both conversations, and her own feelings, Kana decided that it was about time that she introduce Yuki to Raido and the others, who had only heard of her from the occasional story about training or something that the child had done that was worth mentioning. Of course this somehow translated into Kana being in charge of feeding everyone, but that was fine since she wasn't as rusty with her cooking as she was when she first got back.

She wasn't really sure why Neji and Sai were there, though. They just sort of… Showed up.

Kana was pretty sure they had a sixth sense that told them of when she was making food.

Neji placed the final spring roll into the basket, next to an insulated container full of a ridiculous amount of noodles, and walked off to grab his things while Kana's eyes rolled over the counter. Tempura, japchae, fruit, hijiki salad with edamame, spring rolls… Yup. She definitely overdid it.

"Here, take these with you," she handed Neji a stack of four bento boxes, "Be nice to Lee while you're gone. And be careful."

He all but rolled his eyes at the Lee thing, but took the boxes by the strap holding them all together with thanks. Kana was hoping he would come with them to the chunins' apartment, but he had only stopped by to spend a couple of hours together before team 8 was sent on a mission to the Land of Water.

Looping the arm not weighed down by food around her shoulders, Neji gave her a brief kiss on the cheek, "Please make an effort to enjoy yourself."

The hug lasted a little longer than either of them probably anticipated. There was a moment where both of them lingered, unwilling to let go, and Kana could feel the quivering tension in his muscles through the fabric of his tunic.

She turned her head, feeling the way his hair, so long it hung about his waist these days, brushed against her nose, so that her lips hovered just over his ear.

"I'll keep an eye on you," she whispered.

The hand wrapped around her waist flexed in response, and Neji tilted his face down so that it was buried in her neck.

"Thank you."

* * *

The door to the chunins' apartment swung open before Kana could even raise her fist to knock, and Izumo looked like he was going to vibrate out of his skin with excitement.

"Is this her?!" His exposed eye flashed, "She's so cute!"

From further down the hall, Kotetsu looked uncomfortable as he surveyed the group of guests, "So your favorite Root croney _really_ ended up being your brother, huh?"

Kana's eyebrow twitched, "Favorite Root croney?"

Stepping off to the side to let the trio into the genkan, Izumo rolled his eyes, "He started calling Sai and the others your cronies when you started showing up in public again," he looked back at his best friend, "And he's going to play nice because we know none of that was _their_ fault, right, Ko?"

Kotetsu made a face but didn't argue. It was just as well - Sai seemed to completely dismiss his mild hostility by turning to the slighter chunin.

"Where should we put this?" he asked pleasantly, holding up the basket.

While Izumo and Kotetsu turned their attention to the food that was literally being dangled in front of their faces, Kana looked back down at Yuki, who had slid her palm over her master's thigh to grip it in a stiff hold. Her hair was a darker grey than normal, and her face was filled with a tension that seemed to resonate off of her like a thick aura. When Kana's gloved fingers caught her chin to tilt her face up, her brow knitted.

 _'The bandaged one wants us to leave.'_

 _'Kotetsu?'_ she looked up to watch the men unpack lunch.

Yuki nodded _, 'He thinks Sai is bad.'_

Bad? Most villagers distrusted Root members, even more so than regular Anbu units, out of a fear of the unknown, but hadn't Sai mentioned on their way to the apartment that they had spoken briefly before on a mission? It wasn't as if he was one of the creepier members of Root, either - he really had made substantial progress in the last few years with getting in touch with his emotions. It didn't make sense that Kotetsu would be this on edge...

Yuki's arm wrapped around her thigh, _'Did he do something?'_

Kana's frown deepened, and she looked back down at the child from behind her sunglasses _, 'No,'_ she cupped both sides of her face, _'I'll talk to him when I get the chance, but Sai is a good person. He's our family.'_

"Ah, the smell of food, and the feeling of the freakiest chakra known to mankind," Genma purred as he swung open the door, "That can only mean one thing: my future wife has arrived."

 _'It was a joke,'_ Kana sighed inwardly when Yuki's expression was filled with alarm.

Behind him, Raido rolled his eyes and offered the two a tired smile, "Hey, kitten."

The child bristled when Genma dropped down to a crouching position so that they were eye level, "So this is the kid, huh?" he held out a hand, "I'm Genma Shiranui, the coolest person you'll ever meet."

Yuki wasn't impressed. The arm around her master's thigh stiffened with the rest of her body as she glared at his outstretched hand like one would look at a venomous spider. After a few seconds, she reached out with her free hand to run the tips of her fingers over Genma's palm experimentally.

That was when Kana realized that she never actually found out how the child acted around people outside of Neji and Sai. Was Yuki normally like this? Was she this hostile and suspicious when forced to interact with the villagers? Honestly, all they ever did was spend time alone together so, after nearly a year with the Akatsuki and learning to avoid anyone that could cause them trouble, Kana wasn't sure if she was too surprised.

If anything, she just felt guilty for teaching Yuki to distrust others this much.

 _'Yuki, I wouldn't introduce you to people if they were dangerous,'_ she watched her look up, then back at Genma, _'He's one of the few people I would trust with my life. Genma is a friend.'_

That seemed to be exactly what the child needed to hear, because she almost immediately wrapped her tiny fingers around Genma's to squeeze tight. Her eyes flashed and darted about as she felt her way about his hand, feeling the textures of the lines of his palm and pausing every couple of seconds to roll her thumb over a tendon or a callus.

Instead of cracking a joke or teasing Yuki over how much time she spent simply getting to know him, Genma watched with an intensity that was hidden behind a curtain of warm curiosity. It wasn't too unlike the way he looked at Kana when they were standing outside of the jonin standby station, when they were talking about how things had changed, and a small smile tugged at her lips as she watched Yuki's fingers travel up to pinch the ends of his hair.

Raido stepped around the two to slide his arm around Kana's waist, pulling her into a gentle hold.

"I've missed you," he whispered into her hair.

Never taking her eyes off of the girl still hanging onto her leg, Kana leaned into his body and lifted a hand to trace the corded muscles in his exposed forearm, "I'm sorry."

Pressing a kiss to the top of her hair, Raido leaned down to whisper, "Can I have you later?"

"Later," she agreed, carding her fingers through Yuki's bangs as she looked up from Genma to peer at the couple curiously, "Yuki, this is Raido."

The child took a few moments to process what exactly she was witnessing. She hadn't even seen Kisame hold her master so casually, unless they were sleeping, but she was smart enough to understand that this wasn't the same as when Neji made a point of crowding her space. Through their connection, Kana could feel Yuki's swirling emotions as her mind worked.

And, then, she did something that none of them could have expected.

Yuki reached out with both hands to _stab_ Raido.

Too startled to pay much attention to Genma's surprised shout, Kana grabbed a fistful of her hair to yank her away from the tokujo that was pressing a hand to his hip in an attempt to slow the blood that was quickly soaking into his clothing, " _What the fuck?_!"

"Hey, is everything – oh _shit_ ," Kotetsu froze in the hallway when he saw the blood dripping onto his doormat, "I'll get the first aid kit."

"I've got it," Kana roughly pulled Yuki's hair, practically throwing the child behind her, "Explain. _Now_."

 _'He wants to kill you!'_ she made an angry sound in the back of her throat even as her master's hands glowed green over the wounds she had created with her chakra claws; Raido's face immediately began to relax from the pained expression it was twisted into.

This… This was already turning into a mess. Lovely.

"What are you talking about?"

 _'He attacked you – you_ _ **told**_ _me!'_

Well... Fuck.

Kana motioned with her head for Genma and Kotetsu to scram before turning her frown to Yuki, "Wait outside."

 _'But -!'_

" ** _Now_ _!_** "

She gave her lover a helpless expression when the door shut behind her, "Rai, I'm _so_ sorry. I told Yuki about the day in the forest, and I didn't think she remembered –"

Raido's strained breathing began to even out as she repaired his punctured flesh, "I'll be alright, kitten," he offered a half-hearted grin, "There's a level of irony here that I'm sure I'll laugh about after a beer," Raido winced and inhaled sharply, "Or two."

"I just…" Kana sighed and let her head fall forward so it was resting against his chest, "I don't know what I'm doing. This whole thing is such a mess."

"It is, but you've handled worse," Raido's tight-lipped grin softened into that quiet, kind smile that she was so used to, "Maybe we should talk to her together."

Watching the last of the wounds closed, she sighed, "I can't expect you to help me with all of my problems –"

Raido wiped his hands on the back of his shirt before cupping Kana's face to tilt it up, "You haven't been letting me help you, at all."

Kana bit her lip.

"We can talk more later," he leaned in to kiss her forehead, "Right now, let's just take things one at a time, starting with Yuki."

She sighed and, for a moment, let her fingertips, still bloodied from touching his wound, graze along Raido's warm skin as they stood quietly together. With everything that had been happening since Kana's return, neither of them had spent much quality time together; it didn't help that she spent the last couple of weeks avoiding Raido where she could.

It wasn't as if Kana didn't miss being with him, though. Feeling him this near, close enough for her to feel his breath against her face, reminded Kana just exactly how _much_ she missed Raido.

"I love you," she whispered, voice cracking.

She was so sorry for so many things.

Raido's hands slid back into her braided hair, "I know, kitten. I know you do."

When the door was shut behind them, Yuki looked like she was about ready to launch more than just a warning attack. Ironically enough it was only because of her master's presence that she didn't make an attempt to slit Raido's throat.

Kana made sure to position herself between them just in case.

"Yuki, do you remember how I told you that I made mistakes during my time with the Akatsuki?" When the child nodded, Kana sighed and crouched in front of her, "One of those mistakes… It was assuming Raido was trying to hurt me. I couldn't use our kekkei genkai on him, because it was painful to use it with the Sharingan. I was wrong."

Silver eyes darted back and forth between the two and it was clear that she didn't fully understand the gravity of what it exactly meant to be forced to work as a double agent. It was difficult to explain the concept of a mental break to a child as it was, and in Yuki's eyes her master could do no wrong.

Mirroring Kana, Raido lowered himself to a kneeling position so that he was sitting back on his heels.

"Sometimes, when you're out in the field, you have to protect someone and keep them safe. Sometimes you don't know that person, but K – uh – your master had to take care of someone that was very precious to her," he explained, reaching for Kana's hand, "She didn't understand what was happening when we tracked them, and we didn't have time to explain. We were all scared. It was a bad situation."

Yuki's eyes flashed when she watched their hands link together.

"Yeah, I was trying to bring her home, but I didn't understand the situation."

Glowing eyes narrowed, and Kana was beginning to find herself a little annoyed with being cut out of the conversation like this. Being stuck with context clues and trying to read Yuki's expressions to figure out what thoughts she was trying to transmit meant that Kana honestly had no idea what she was saying.

"Because I love her," Raido smiled warmly, "I love her more than anything else."

A pang of guilt hit Kana square in the chest at his confession, and she had to force herself to put the reminder of her talk with Inoichi on the backburner

Yuki hummed, mouth tight.

There was another silence, this one much longer than before. Their eyes were locked on each other, twitching and moving in sync, and it didn't take Kana very long for her to realize that she was watching Yuki sift through his memories. Her first instinct was to come to Raido's aid, to tell her that it was exceptionally rude to just plunder through someone's mind like that – not like Kana honestly had room to talk – but what stopped her was Raido reaching out for the young girl's hands.

He was _showing_ her.

Yuki's eyes flashed, and her eyebrows knitted in time with Raido's. There was a profound sadness in her posture, a look that was much too old for such a young child to be wearing, and after a few more moments of heavy silence, she made a small sound in the back of her throat as she broke the link. Yuki looked over at Kana, then back at Raido, before pulling away from his hands so she could hold his face in her own.

Her fingertips grazed along his scarred cheek, feeling the gentle rise and fall of the twisted, marred flesh that spoke of the untold horrors Raido had been forced to endure. The tokujo's expression changed into one that was quiet and tender, and he wrapped his arms around Yuki's tiny waist when she moved in to embrace him.

"I'm going to try."

Kana wasn't entirely sure what he was talking about, but his answer seemed to satisfy the child, who turned her head to rest it on Raido's shoulder the smile of a contented cat as he rose to a standing position with Yuki still in his arms.

By the time they made it back into the chunin's kitchen, the blood on the floor was gone and Genma was walking out of the bedroom with a t-shirt in hand.

"I swear, you seriously might as well just move in," Kana said as she watched Raido take the article of clothing when it was offered.

Genma winked but said nothing, instead turning his attention back to his best friend, " _You two_ seem to have resolved your differences," he purred with a lilt to his voice.

Yuki frowned in her embarrassment.

"You know me, ever the mediator."

"Yuki, go wash your hands," Kana peeled the girl away from Raido's body so he could go get changed, "You're not eating with blood all over your – Sai, for the love of the gods, she can do it _herself_!"

Sai froze like a deer in headlights where he was already standing from his seat.

Kana sighed.

There was no way Yuki wasn't going to end up being a spoiled brat,

* * *

 _ **Note:** _ Sorry for not updating for a while. And for updating with what's probably a shitty chapter.

Life's been happening and I'm honestly too depressed to write very much. It's even harder to write about depressing shit.

Thankfully this'll be about the end of the unhappy stuff. I can't really bring myself to write the bittersweet happy ending with the way things are.


	34. Chapter 34

Kana was fluttering about the kitchen in her apartment, diligently preparing an assortment of colorful bento boxes. Off to the side, Raido was ignoring the sudden onset of cravings for the herring soba that was being carefully scooped into the boxes, next to the vegetable medley, and telling himself that if he ate the food now then he would regret it during his lunch break.

At first he offered to help but quickly learned that cooking was one of the few things Kana had to keep herself occupied, as training Yuki only took up her mornings and, for the most part, she honestly had very little to do in the vast amount of free time she was given. As a busy tokujo himself Raido understood that this was something she needed to do on her own, so he quickly conceded to her ushering him away and was content with simply observing while he waited.

However, Raido had a somewhat sensitive throat thanks to the torture in his 20s that left his skin marred. Whenever peppers or bold seasonings were cooked, inhaling the air around him would leave him feeling thirsty and the back of his throat would get scratchy. Like any normal human being, he coughed a couple of times into his sleeve.

Kana looked over her shoulder, brow furrowed in concern, "Do you need me?"

It was a strangely phrased question, but it was easy to figure out what she was asking, so Raido shook his head and coughed again, reaching for the glass of water on the table.

She was clearly unhappy with his response, though, because she all but literally dropped everything she was doing and flickered over to his side so quickly that Raido was sure that not even her strangely-patterned Sharingan could have registered the movement. The green glow of chakra was on his neck before the sound of it being channeled could reach his ears.

"If you're uncomfortable, tell me," she murmured, sounding more sad than chiding, "Lying doesn't help either of us."

"It's just the seasonings in the air," his hands came down to rest on her hips as he spoke, "I'm alright."

The glow of medical ninjutsu was soon extinguished, as well as the discomfort in his throat, and Kana seemed to refuse to meet his gaze as the tips of her fingers lightly prodded along his throat, feeling for any swelling his lymph nodes.

One of the hands on her hips rose to stop her, "Kitten, I'm not sick –"

That was when Raido could see a quiet panic lingering in her mismatched eyes – the eyes that told him that she was still too afraid to feel relaxed. His heart clenched painfully.

He knew that, in the past, Kana experienced PTSD in the form of depression and vivid flashbacks. They started happening not long after the Uchiha massacre, according to Kakashi, and she usually would appear to simply come to a complete halt as if suddenly lost in thought. Anyone who didn't know her wouldn't notice the glazed look in Kana's eyes or the way her breathing became infinitesimally shallower.

This, though… This was different. Flashbacks were one thing, but it was glaringly apparent that his lover was living in constant fear. Not of being in danger – of losing yet another person she cared about.

"I'm not sick," Raido repeated quietly, wrapping both of her hands in his own to gently pull them away from where they were prodding his chest, "You aren't going to lose me, kitten."

Just like that, though, Kana's lips parted as her previously worried expression transformed into one that he had never seen on her before.

Helplessness.

"You don't have to be sick for me to lose you, Raido…"

As much as he didn't want to admit it, she was right. They were in the beginnings of war, and Raido wasn't so prideful that he believed that he was invulnerable to the cost that came with this kind of political unrest. He couldn't tell her that, though. Not when Kana was looking at him like that.

"Is that why you've been avoiding me?" he nearly whispered, taking slow steps backwards to guide her to the bed that Raido knew hadn't been used since she came home.

Raido wasn't a dumb man. He knew that there was a reason that Kana never came to him like she used to, and why he was always the one showing up on her doorstep or calling her house – though that last part may be because Kana still didn't understand the concept of telephones since they were introduced after she left.

 _Something_ happened, though, that much Raido knew. Kana went from stalking him, to showing up on his doorstep unannounced, to jumping into that damned Kamui dimension if she saw him on the street. It very much felt like one step was taken forward before she decided to take three steps back without explaining why.

"Do you… Do you remember how there was another man I traveled with?" Kana murmured in a voice that made her sound much smaller than she was.

They sat down on the end of the bed, the only piece of furnishing in her entire apartment, and Raido twisted around so that he was facing her with one leg bent between them, "Of course."

Itachi Uchiha's assigned partner was Kisame Hoshigaki of the Hidden Mist, who went rogue after attempting to overthrow the government, but that was all Raido knew. As much intel as Konoha had on the Akatsuki, and as much as they gained from Kana telling them everything she knew, the Niju Shotai had been disbanded not long after war was declared so Raido didn't have time to familiarize himself with the finer details.

"We were lovers," she whispered after a long silence, "Not… Not in the traditional sense… We never said it. We didn't hold hands or confide in each other with little things. We couldn't, not with the way things were, but…"

Raido felt like he was being stabbed in the chest.

"We _loved_ each other, and…" Raido could see tears forming in the corners of her eyes, and it was like the kunai in his chest was ripping him open, "I found out that he committed suicide to prevent intel from falling into our hands."

Of course he knew that she loved him. As soon as Izumo suggested it the night they all gathered together, Raido could see it in the way her body language changed towards him. When Kana didn't immediately deny the suggestion like she used to reject the advances drunken bar patrons used to make, he knew.  
That didn't make hearing her say it out loud any easier, though. Seeing her hunched over like she was, when she used to be the proudest woman he knew, felt like a punch to his gut. Instead of standing tall and confident and looking at him with a love that made his chest warm, Kana just looked small and defeated and was staring at her lap with shame that lingered behind a veil of despair.

Raido didn't know what to do.

"I feel like I betrayed you. And, now, I feel like I'm betraying _him_ , and it's like I'm being unfaithful to you by feeling like this…" Kana's shoulders began to tremble.

Fuck, _fuck_ , Raido hated this.

He hated this whole fucking situation.

He hated Danzo for being the very definition of a scumbag that would trade off Leaf shinobi for his own personal benefit. He hated the Uchiha for planning a coup that would be thwarted by her best friend. He hated the Raikage for killing Neji's father and forcing her to raise him on her own. He hated the Shimi clan for exiling their own people.

Raido hated every person that was involved in putting them both through all of this.

But he wasn't angry.

As much as he wanted to be, and as much as he knew other people would be enraged in his shoes, he couldn't bring himself to feel any anger – he just wanted to make things better. Raido was so mentally and emotionally drained. He was exhausted of the pain that he endured from all of this, and he could see that Kana was too fragile to handle any more.

He reached out with one hand to tuck her hair behind one ear, "I don't know what you want me to do, kitten…" Raido let his fingers graze the scar just under her ear that served as a reminder of how he almost lost her on a mission, "If it's what you want, I'll leave. If it will help you get better…" he swallowed against the growing lump in his throat, "I'll walk away."

With the way she clung to him, and begged him to stay alive, Raido thought that she had meant it when she said that she wanted to stay with him – that she loved him. But… If this was hurting her, or if she had just been caught up in the moment…

Raido wasn't going to trap her in a relationship she didn't want. He wasn't going to be that kind of man.

He loved Kana too much to let himself be the reason she couldn't get better.

As soon as the words left his lips, though, she bent over to bury her face in her gloved hands with a sound that tore his heart into two pieces. It was as if she was trying to cry, and was going through the motions, even if she couldn't actually spill tears anymore.

Raido wasn't sure if he had ever heard anything so absolutely miserable in his life.

"R-Rai… I can't… I didn't," Kana was struggling to form words between the choked sounds that seemed to get lodged in her throat, "Please – don't – I can't – I _can't_ –"

"Okay, slow down," Raido maneuvered off of the bed so that he was kneeling in front of her. He held her head in both of his hands and pressed a kiss into his hair even as his own stomach twisted, "Breathe. Breathe, kitten, don't try to talk."

Shinobi were trained to recognize panic attacks and anxiety to reduce any complications on missions, and Raido had spent more than his fair share of nights talking Genma out of hysterics when it came to Hayate – especially after his death. He didn't fully understand what it felt like to experience something like this but, from what Gen told him, Raido was pretty sure Kana was feeling like her entire world was falling apart and he felt like shit for being the one to trigger it, even if he was aware enough of the situation to know that he wasn't entirely to blame.

"I-I'm… S – Rai, I'm…"

Raido combed his fingers through her hair while his other hand smoothed over her back, "I know," he knew that she was sorry, and he didn't want to listen to her apologize for the rest of their lives, "You're sorry. You're still sorry for leaving. You're sorry for stabbing me. You're sorry for the fight in the forest. You're sorry for everything I've already forgiven you for, and you're sorry for things you have no control over," Raido kissed the top of her head again, "You're sorry for falling in love with Kisame."

Kana made a horrible choking noise before being thrown into a coughing fit.

"Kitten, please, _calm down_ ," he cooed, bringing his head down to rest against hers, "It's… Look, you know I'm not the jealous type, but I'm not going to lie and say that seeing you like this because of another man doesn't make me feel like hell. I love you _so much_ , Kana. You're the only person I've ever loved this much, and you're the only one I've so much as _looked at_ since the night we hooked up after meeting in the bar…"

Raido trailed of long enough for his hands to come back and pull her face out of her lap, "But you explained everything, already. Kana, you were alone, and scared, and you thought I had _every_ intention to kill you and Itachi. Even if it hurts like hell, I understand why you let yourself care for someone else." He waited for her to calm down to shaky gasps before continuing, "I hate the idea of you being with another man, it tears me apart, but I don't feel _betrayed_. I'm _not_ angry, and I doubt _he_ would be, either. Not if he truly loved you."

Because watching someone you cared about struggle this desperately to pull themselves out of a pit they had dug themselves into was one of the most miserable things Raido could imagine.

For several agonizing minutes neither of them said anything. Kana's entire body trembled beneath his hands, her eyes were bloodshot and glued to his chest, and she looked as if she had aged ten years in the last few minutes. Raido pushed her hair back behind her ears but continued to hold her face in his hands, his thumbs rubbing her cheeks rhythmically. He didn't know what else to do – he wasn't a psych-nin, or a neutral third party like Inoichi. He was desperately trying to help Kana calm down by guiding her to breathe slowly, and deeply, through her belly to keep her from hyperventilating again, but he felt like his heart had been run over by a train and it was taking decades of shinobi training to not lose himself in his hurt and worry.

Eventually, though, Kana's breathing evened out enough for her to speak.

"Please… Don't leave," she whispered hoarsely, "Don't leave me. I… I love you so much…"

Raido's eyes slid shut as his entire being tensed, dropping his hands to rest in his lap when he asked, "Do you love me, or do you need someone _familiar_?"

Many couples stayed together, or reunited, because they were comfortable. This was especially true for shinobi, who clung to any form of warmth and comforting familiarity to keep themselves grounded in what was otherwise a hectic life that was full of death and uncertainty. Raido had to be sure, even if asking filled him with dread.

The worst part was that he might actually settle with that. He had spent so many years tortured by an exhausting hope that she would come home, and had volunteered for hundreds of missions that ran off of a tip of Akatsuki being in the Land of Fire, that Raido would accept any form of affection by this point, even if it cost him his self respect by acknowledging that it wasn't truly love.

Kana's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed. A myriad of emotions passed over her abnormally pale face for the exactly fort-seven seconds that Raido held his breath in miserable anticipation. It probably would have been easier if he didn't feel like he was on the verge of vomiting – or cardiac arrest, whichever fate deemed should hit first – but his lungs were burning by the time he heard,

"I love you, Raido."

Every muscle fiber in the tokujo's body, stretched so taut that it all threatened to snap at any given moment, sagged in soul-crushing relief. It took all of the training Raido had endured in his shinobi career to keep his hands steady as he placed them on the tops of her thighs so he had something to keep his stable as he brushed his nose against hers, feeling the edges of their lips grazed together. Raido inhaled deeply to keep himself grounded, knowing that he couldn't fall apart when Kana was already so close to shattering, but all it did was cause nostalgia to slam into his gut.

Green tea, and flowers. She always smelled like this, like some exotic tea made of gardenias and lavender and gods knew what else. It was the scent that lingered on his bed for days after she broke into the Hokage's office, tormenting him when he was awake and haunting Raido into his dreams. It was what wrapped around him as he fell to sleep with Kana sleeping soundly next to him with her head tucked under his chin.

It had taken so long for her to finally trust him enough to sleep with him in a non-mission environment. The next morning, when he woke up to find that she was still curled around him, one hand under his shirt and resting over his belly, Raido realized that he was in love. He didn't know how to handle that kind of new information – Kana was so young, nearly half his age. She didn't understand relationships or commitments. Raido felt like he had the wind knocked out of him then.

He felt that way now.

Nothing was more frightening than realizing that you would rather die a thousand deaths before you lost someone.

Kana's hands, which were wringing each other hard enough that it was a miracle that her fingers weren't dislocated, suddenly shifted in her lap to wrap around Raido's wrists in an iron grip. Even through the gloves he could feel how cold they were, but he was pretty sure that she wasn't trembling in front of him because she was feeling chilled.

"Rai…"

At the sound of her voice, small and choked, Raido braced himself before pulling back just far enough to meet her gaze. He ignored the way his gut twisted when Kana bit her lip to hold back a quiet sob.

"I… I need you," she nearly whispered, "Raido, I… I need…" mismatched eyes flitted down to where Kana was anchoring herself on his arms, "Take… _T-take care of me, **please**_."

The words were rushed and ground out, but they weren't spoken so quickly that Raido's ears didn't catch them. His dark eyes drank in her appearance; her eyes spilled silent tears down cheeks that were already raw and stained from weeping, and they were tight around the edges from her brow knitting. It wasn't an expression of shame, but one of desperation.

At first, he was completely speechless. There was a moment of thick silence between them where Raido struggled to find words. Kana had never asked him for anything – or, at least, nothing of great importance, usually something like picking up an item or dinner or spending time together. She never asked him for help, or anyone, for that matter. It just wasn't what she did; Kana took care of other people and refused to ask for anything for herself. For as long as he had known her, it was a trait that infuriated Raido because it always ended up leading to her having a meltdown – one that she always dealt with on her own, either by completely destroying a training field or by drinking herself into oblivion.

But, now, Kana was asking him. Purple and crimson faded to the color of summer as her greatest defenses fell; she was inviting him in, _finally_ asking for him to step in and help.

" _Raido_ …"

His heart threatened to rip itself apart at the pleading way his name tumbled from Kana's lips, wrapped around a sob. Snapped out of his own musings, Raido pushed himself up from his kneeling position to climb over the edge of the bed, slowly crawling over Kana's thighs and gently guiding her back until she was laying down into the sheets. With both of his hands he cupped her jaw to tilt her face up towards his; Raido pressed a long, slow kiss against her lips, and it wasn't until Kana sighed that he pulled away to trail his lips over her cheek, kissing away the tears he found.

"I'll take care of you, Kana," he promised, his lips ghosting along her skin, "Of _course_ I will," Raido placed a tender kiss over her eyelid, "I'll do anything you need for the rest of your life."

Bringing her hands up to hold his waist, Kana turned her face so that her lips brushed against the scarred half of his face. The contact was light, only just enough for him to feel the sensation of sweet kisses flutter along his marred flesh, but it was enough to make Raido suddenly forget how to breathe.

Oh, gods, how he had missed this. How he had spent so many nights over the years she was gone, desperately trying to force himself to remember the feel of her hair between his fingers, or the way her breath felt on his skin. Raido felt like a fish that had been thrown back into the ocean after nearly dying on the beach – he wanted to run his hands all over Kana's body, to hold and squeeze and caress every inch of her that he could, to push himself inside of her and desperately bring them both to a release that Raido was nothing short of starved of. The need to reacquaint himself with the woman beneath him hit him with the force of a tidal wave, and he was momentarily blinded by it.

When Raido pulled back to crush their mouths together, feeling his heart race almost painfully in his chest, he froze.

So much had changed in the years they were apart. Her hair grew in a strange color that wasn't purple, but wasn't quite yet white, either. The tattoos engraved into her flesh had changed some of the texture of her hands and arms. Kana was a few inches taller than when she left, her face a little more slender and her legs longer than before. She was colder, didn't smile as much, and was endlessly distant.

So much was different, but her eyes, so green and bright, were raw, exhausted, and _scared_.

Suddenly, Raido was gazing down at the fifteen year-old girl that had chosen him to give her virginity over to.

Raido touched their cheeks together and took a handful of deep breaths to steady himself. No, he couldn't rush this. They needed to take their time, relearn each others' touch. Their time together had become such a precious thing – Raido refused to ever take it for granted again.

"Kitten, we're going to go to my place for a few days, is that alright?"

Normally he wouldn't be so brazen to make decisions for Kana, but something told him that she wanted him to take control of the situation. She asked for Raido's help, which meant that he was going to take her away from this empty, inhospitable one-room apartment to a place that he knew would be better for the both of them.

A small sound caught in the back of her throat when Kana nodded.

"Stay here, I'll get your things." Raido kissed her once, twice, then pushed himself up just as slowly as he had climbed over her bed. He didn't mean to treat her like some wounded animal, but experience had taught him that sudden movements would be a bad idea.

Raido felt her eyes follow him silently as he moved around the room. The lack of square footage meant that everything was pretty easy to find, there was only one dresser shoved up against the wall and there were only so many places that her gear could be kept, but it didn't take long for him to realize that, well, there wasn't anything to find.

Looking over his shoulder from where he was kneeling in front of her open dresser, Raido furrowed his brow in confusion, "Where are your pajamas?"

"Don't have any."

He opened his mouth to ask why she still didn't have any sleeping clothes after being home for so long, but his jaw snapped shut when he realized that he already knew the answer. Something like pajamas would be a frivolity to Kana, something she didn't explicitly need to have. It was probably why there were only three pairs of socks, three pairs of panties and three sports bras all neatly folded in the top drawer, and why her footlocker only contained the bare minimums other than one set of her own personal items.

Keeping her fridge full to feed the kids was nothing but, when it came to her own personal needs, she still insisted on keeping what was absolutely needed.

Raido decided that, tomorrow, they were going shopping.

* * *

There were few times in Neji's life where he found himself feeling genuinely fearful.

The first time was when he was seven years old. The Hyuga and Shimi Clans regularly collaborated for festivals, so when it came for the Halloween festival to approach, some older clan members from either side decided that they were going to tell Neji about the souls that haunted the Shimi manor. They were supposedly the tormented spirits of those who died in the compound, normally the slaughtered parents of Kanas or people who were exiled from the clan and ended up committing suicide.

When he was finally brave enough to set foot inside the clan's compound after hearing such horrific tales, he saw a bloodied woman staggering through the halls that bore a frightening resemblance to the ghosts told by his cousins. Neji later learned that it was just an injured kunoichi coming home from a particularly taxing mission, but he still insisted that Kana sleep with him – in his room, of course, because there was no way he was staying in the manor – for the following month and a half.

More recently, he found himself terrified at the prospect of Lee's surgery failing. His fear struck him rather by surprise at first. Neji had been relaxing with Tenten after what they thought to be a successful training session that resulted in his teammate getting the hang of a new jutsu, when he was hit with a startling flash of clarity and he realized that Lee wasn't there.

It was in that moment that he came to terms with the fact that, within the next forty-eight hours, something could go terribly wrong. A misplaced cut from the scalpel, a nick from the bone fragments trapped in his spine, or his body simply going into shock… There were so many factors working against Lee that, in that moment, Neji realized that there was a very strong possibility that he could lose one of his best friends forever. Even if Lee didn't die on the table, he could die during recovery. If he didn't die, he could be reduced to living in a wheelchair or hobbling around on that infernal crutch, and Neji was absolutely certain that Lee would simply cease to exist if that were the case.

Horror took little time in overcoming him, and Neji had to explain to Tenten that his sudden vomiting was due to dehydration.

So, while uncommon, fear was not entirely unfamiliar to the teenager.

He watched in horror as his last teammate was struck down. Blood spurted from where his throat had been slashed, and his entire chakra pathway system went out like a candle that had been snuffed out.

There was no way they could have detected the ambush.

The bounty hunters, they were too skilled at hiding their own chakra signatures.

Neji's eyes followed the female bounty hunter as she moved towards him. When he realized that he was out of chakra, the familiar cold wire of fear wrapped around his stomach like a long garrote.

Black chakra wrapped around her forearm and over the back of her hand to shape itself into a blade.

He was going to die.


	35. Chapter 35

It was a rare thing to wake up in a gentle manner. Usually Kana was startled awake from nightmares, or a knock at her door from either Kakashi or one of the kids, or the shrill ringing of the telephone mounted on the wall in the kitchen.

The change was such a stark difference from what she was accustomed to that she actually stiffened and sucked in a harsh breath to brace herself.

Raido's lips curved into a smile against the back of her shoulder, pressing lightly along skin that contrasted against his own. "I was wondering when you would wake up."

Still stuck together from sleep, it took a few attempts of garbled noises before Kana could peel her lips apart and wet them with a flick of her tongue to ask, "How long have you been at this?"

Callused fingers scooped up the hair strewn across her back and neck to push it off to the side, carding through the slightly tangled locks and shaking out any small knots. The movement gave Raido new access to her neck, and his lips fluttered across her back to trail up along her hairline. When Kana sighed contently, melting back into the sheets, his smile expanded. "Couple of minutes," he kissed her neck again, "You sleep okay?"

Surprisingly… Yes. Without trying to downplay the situation by blaming it on how comfortable Raido's bed was in comparison to the narrow twin frame in her apartment, Kana slept better than she had in months. In all honesty she didn't even remember falling asleep, she just remembered being warm… And safe.

She hummed and readjusted her arms so that they were hugging the pillow to her face, losing herself in the comfort of Raido's body hovering over hers, his fingers grazing along the exposed flesh of her arms in unrecognizable patterns, and his lips pressing gentle kisses into her hair. Kana savored the scent of wood and musk that practically enveloped her while telling herself that she wouldn't mind waking up to this every morning.

"That's good," Raido's voice was still husky from sleep and it, combined with the way his breath ghosted over Kana's ear, sent a wave of goosebumps to break out over her skin.

A thought occurred to her, and Kana finally opened her eyes and twisted around in search for his alarm clock, "Don't you have to go to work?"

Raido slid off to the side to tuck himself around her body, sliding one of his legs between hers so that their bodies were pressed flush, "Already called in for muster. Gen offered to cover my shift so I could take a vacation day."

"You shouldn't waste a vacation day on –"

"Kitten," the hand on her arm slid down the length of her torso to rest on her hip, "You know how many vacation days I have saved up? _Twenty_ , and that's not counting my sick days," Raido idly thumbed the waistband of her underwear, "This is what they're for. I'd rather be here with you than be in the office doing paperwork and wishing I was home."

Kana opened her mouth to protest, to remind him that she wasn't worth wasting precious paid time off for, but instead found herself releasing a resigned sigh. She knew that Raido didn't consider this to be a waste and considered her very worthy of his time, and arguing that point would only bring down what was turning out to be a pleasant mood.

Strong arms secured themselves around her waist when Kana rolled over so that her face was comfortably nestled in the hollow of Raido's shoulder.  
"So what do you want to do on your day off?" she asked quietly, letting one hand drift down to trace the outline of his hipbone with the tip of one finger.

"I was thinking we could get you some clothing."

Kana frowned, "You got a problem with my clothes?"

A half-hearted laugh rumbled through his chest, "I would if there was anything to have a problem with," he murmured, "You own exactly three sets of clothing, and some spare items."

"So?"

" _So_ ," he pulled back so that their gazes could meet, "I have never met anyone who hated pants as much as you do, but that's all you have. And you shouldn't be wearing long black sleeves in the summer – that's just asking for a heat stroke."

Kana made a face while her mind struggled to find a way to get herself out of this situation. Shopping for needless things like clothing wasn't something that was interested her – or, well, shopping for anything that wasn't a total necessity. Not only that...

"My tattoos and scars intimidate people," she mumbled honestly, "People stare. It puts Yuki on edge when we go out."

"I've seen that kid when she goes out, and she's always on edge." Raido's eyes narrowed with curiosity, "Speaking of which..." The hand not on her hip came up to gently trace the outline of one of the rings on her shoulder, "What are these from?"

Kana nearly flinched away, but managed to keep herself in control enough so that she only twitched underneath his hand.

A trained shinobi with twenty years in the service, Raido noticed. He withdrew his hand as if he had just injured her, looking both worried and a little hurt.

"It… Wasn't torture, was it?"

Part of Kana wanted to lie and say yes. She wanted to make up a story on the fly about how ninken gnawed on her shoulder as enemy shinobi struggled to retrieve the information they wanted. She didn't want him to know about they were essentially reminders – a way for Kisame to leave a part of himself after every time they found themselves together when Itachi wasn't around.

After everything they'd been through, though…

She pushed herself up into a sitting position, head bowed so her hair acted as a veil that separated the two.

"They're from Kisame," Kana answered through tight lips.

She couldn't lie to him about this.

The alarm that coursed through Raido was nearly palpable; his chakra flared and his entire body tensed before he jerked upright, "He hurt you?!"

"No -!" Kana cut herself off by sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, not wishing to come off as angry. After a couple of seconds of wringing the duvet in her tattooed fingers for her defensiveness to subside, she finally continued with, "He was a good man, Raido. He wouldn't hurt me."

Except for when it came to delightfully rough fucking. If the way he always smeared around the blood and semen before cleaning her off, eyes flashing with undeniable satisfaction, was anything to go by, he definitely enjoyed the carnage he caused.

When it came to anything else, though… Kana remembered the stiffness in his shoulders, and the way his jaw flexed, the day they stood outside of the small tea shop. Getting hit with a jutsu, or cut with a kunai, during training was one thing, but Kisame never wanted to bring any real harm to her, even after the cold way she treated him in their first months together.

Raido clearly did not believe her, "Then what the hell is that?!" he poked the top curve of a ring that extended up towards her neck.

Kana swatted his hand away, suddenly angry, "He wasn't like you, Raido! He'd intentionally pick fights with me just for entertainment, he was aggressive, and he did _this_ ," she gestured at her scarred shoulder, "Because he was afraid of being forgotten. This was how he expressed his feelings –"

"By marking you as his property the same way _Orochimaru_ did -?!"

There was a crack that cut Raido's words short, causing a heavy silence to fall between the two of them. Kana's palm stung. As it reddened from the impact, Raido simply stared at the wall with a steely expression, the muscles over his jaw flexing as he ground his teeth; he'd be lucky if none of them were broken.

After a series of deep breaths to calm down, Kana narrowed her eyes at the man, "Don't… Don't you _ever_ talk about him like that," she hissed, "You didn't know him. You weren't _there_."

She didn't wait for a response. Kana threw the covers off of her legs and climbed off of the bed in search for her clothes. Changing her bra and panties could wait until she got home and jumped into the shower – for now Kana was only interested in collecting her things and being decent enough to walk around in public; exercising in fresh summer air would hopefully help quell the storm of anger that raged in her gut. How dare he? How _dare_ he?!

"Thanks for putting up with me yesterday," she muttered after locating her pants, "But maybe I should go."

Kana could hear Raido swear under his breath as he tossed the covers back to follow after her.

"Wait, kitten, I'm sorry," he said a little too earnestly, stopping to stand behind her. Raido's hands settled on her waist, where they flexed and twitched with rising anxiety.

"I'm… I'm _jealous_ , Kana," he admitted thickly, "I understand why things happened the way that they did, and I don't blame you for anything, but…" Raido buried his face into her hair with a sharp exhale, "That doesn't mean I'm _okay_. I don't want to have to think about it, but, this," one hand rose to lightly brush along her shoulder, "This is going to be a constant reminder that your heart belongs to someone else."

Kana's jaw nearly hit the floor and she spun around fast enough to nearly put Raido on his heels, " _Raido_ -!"

"I know, I know… You love me," he nearly whispered, looking straight over her head at nothing in particular, "And I love you, too, kitten. That's the problem."

Before she could open her mouth to ask a question, Kana was pulled into a tight embrace that shook with Raido's quivering muscles.

"I waited for _three years_ to see you again. I volunteered for the Niju Shotai so I could find a way to bring you home, and…" Raido pressed his cheek against the top of her head, tightening the arms looped around her shoulders, "Now you're here. I'm _holding_ you, and I get to feel your lips on me again, and you make me food… And in the back of my head the only thing I can think of is how you'd rather be with him."

Having been so swept up in her own world, Kana had completely forgotten about how self-conscious he was when it came to relationships. It had taken her months to even get him to remove his shirt to expose his chest when they were in bed together and, even after they agreed to start a real relationship with each other, he struggled with his own insecurities that put a strain on things until he finally accepted that Kana wasn't going to leave him for the chunin, or Genma.

How he must have felt to hear that Kana felt as if she was betraying Kisame's memory by being with him…

With a gentle tug, she stepped out of his embrace, dropped her pants on the floor, and guided Raido back to the bed. Once Raido was sitting on the edge of the mattress, staring down at his lap with a heartbreakingly somber expression, she helped rid him of his night shirt.

"Rai…" Kana brought their lips together in an unhurried kiss as she climbed into his lap, "Rairai…"

Raido's hands slid up her bare thighs to tightly hold her hips, pulling her close.

"I'll always miss Kisame, Rai," she explained as her lips melded with his, "But, don't you think that, if I _wanted_ to, I would have left for him? – _hup_ – !"

He suddenly flipped them over. He was hovering over her now, his hands pinning her wrists over her head in a crushing grip. Raido nearly growled as he mashed their lips together in a bruising kiss.

Kana's brain shorted out for a second as she struggled to understand what was happening. The tokubetsu jonin was normally so calm, so composed, so gentle in everything he did, that the display of aggressive dominance he was showing right now, contrasted by an almost desperate undercurrent in his voice, was nearly startling. The last time Raido was like this was when…

Was when he came to her in the hospital after she nearly died.

That was when everything fell into place.

 _'Oh, Raido…'_

A sharp bite on her lower lip pulled her out of her thoughts, and Kana finally found the wherewithal to respond.

"R-Rai, listen to me," she gasped out, "I told you that – _mmmmfffuck_."

Raido rocked his hips into hers, trailing rough, sloppy kisses along her jaw, and Kana had to wrench her hands free to grab fistfuls of his spiky hair. When she was able to dislodge his face from where it was buried beneath her ear, Kana released the brown locks to cradle both sides of his face.

"I told you when I came home that I wasn't going anywhere," her thumbs rubbed at his cheekbones as she spoke quietly, "I stayed in the village for a reason. This is my _home_ ," Kana smiled a little, "Konoha is where I want to build a new future. _A future with you_."

"Kitten…"

She pulled his face down another kiss, this one slow and lush. Still a little swollen from Raido's assault, Kana's lips were a bit sore and she was pretty sure her lip had split where he bit down, but the sensation of their lips wrapping around each other, filling all of the empty spaces between them, was enough comfort in itself. The green glow of medical ninjutsu that healed the cut was hardly even needed.

The hands on her hips were shaking by the time they pulled apart.

"My heart belongs to you, Raido," Kana murmured reassuringly against his mouth, "It always will."

For a second Raido seemed to hesitate, as if dealing with some internal conflict, but then he was slanting his mouth over hers again.

It had been too long. Kana knew this, she knew just how much time had passed since they were given the opportunity to make love to one another or even make out like a couple of teenagers, but for some reason it didn't really hit her until that moment. It wasn't until one of Raido's arms slipped around her waist to pull her more onto the bed with him, settling her over the duvet before claiming her lips for his own, that Kana fully understood just how long it had been since she felt his hands on her bare skin. She had been so concerned with Yuki and training and grieving that she simply didn't have the proper frame of mind for something like this.

But as her hands slid under the hem of Raido's night shirt to graze over abdominals that flexed in response, Kana was struck with a sudden desperate need for the man hovering over her that left her in a cliché state of breathlessness as he deepened the kiss.

It wasn't just about relieving a sexual edge, it was about becoming reacquainted with one another. It was about falling back into sync, and finding that synergy that they used to carry so easily. There was so much time to make up for, so much heartbreak, that Kana found herself nearly tearing his shirt in two as she pulled it over his head. Once it was chucked to some part of the bedroom that neither of them gave a damn about, Raido used the opportunity to slide her sports bra up her chest and over her shoulders while her arms were still raised. He ducked back down, capturing her waist tightly, and their lips crashed together in a sloppy, passionate kiss.

The feeling of skin on skin was almost unbearable. Kana arched into Raido's body and bracketed his waist with her legs while her fingers found themselves tangling into his messy spikes, a small noise getting stuck in the back of her throat. It felt like Raido was trying to completely wrap his body around hers with the way he was holding Kana to his chest so fiercely.

He groaned into her mouth when Kana pulled his hair, his hips bucking reflexively. They're both so starved for each other that even the small amount of friction was enough for both of them to roll their eyes back, and Kana couldn't stop herself from rolling up into the erection that was only barely concealed by the thin fabric of Raido's boxers.

The kiss took little time in devolving into a hungry exchange of saliva and teeth and probably a little bit of blood again as the two picked up on hints that each other was laying down, rocking their hips and grabbing and squeezing at literally anything their hands can get to. Neither of them could seem to find any sort of rhythm, they just bucked and rolled their hips while relishing in the moans that they offered unabashedly.

Eventually Kana must have gotten tired of waiting for Raido to take the initiative because she pulled her arms back to push herself up with her elbows, using her knees to keep their position as she rolled them over so that Raido was lying flat on his back. One of his hands instinctively rose to grab a fistful of her hair even as Kana started to move herself downwards, pressing hard, bruising kisses down his throat and trailing her tongue along the sensitive hollows as she passed them. The hand she wasn't bracing her weight on journeyed down the length of Raido's torso to palm his erection through fabric dampened by his own precome; a bolt of electricity seemed to travel down her body to pool between her legs when she felt it jump in her hand in time with Raido releasing a surprised gasp that ended in a snarl.

Fuck, she loved the noises he made.

Kana didn't bother wasting time with a get-to-know-you expedition with her mouth and roughly nipped at the sensitive scarred flesh that stretched over the left half of his chest, eliciting another snarl as the hand in her hair tightened almost painfully. Her hand slipped through the slit in his boxers and she bit at her already abused lip ruthlessly and shivered at the way it felt in her fingers, hot, pulsing with excitement and engorged with enough blood that Kana was pretty sure Raido was going to walk away from this with bruises, if the way his skin was stretching in an attempt to get harder was any indication.

In the back of her head she knew that maybe she should slow down, that Raido was the type of person that would rather savor the moment, but she told that voice in her head that it was too damn bad because it had been four goddamn years since she was with Raido like this and that was enough slowing down for her. Kana continued to press near-frenzied kisses down his chest as her hand slowly pumps the throbbing cock in her hand, dragging her tongue over the darker scars that she knew were a little more sensitive than the rest and listening to the hungry noises that wrangled their way past Raido's lips. The hand not twitching in her hair was gripping the bed sheet in a vice grip and twisting it hard enough for Kana to hear the distinct sounds of the tiny fibers reaching their breaking point; he twisted harder when her teeth captured the unavoidable nipple in her path, and he bucked his hips into her fist with a strained groan.

"Oh _fuck_ , Kana…" Raido nearly growled between gasps that made his chest heave, "Shit…"

Kana all but purred lecherously around the nipple between her teeth, rolling her jaw just to listen to him choke on the constant stream of erotic noises that tumbled from his lips. The hand wrapped around his cock began to speed up, stripping him hard and fast, and Kana found herself rubbing her thighs together with a wiggle to suppress her own growing need. Precome was beginning to drip over her tattooed fingers, slickening her hold, and the subsequent increase in volume from Raido was getting to her.

She decided it was time to stop toying around and gave Raido's stiffened nipple one last harsh suck, tugging with her lips, before dropping down so that her lips hovered over the very bottom of his ribcage. The hitch in his breath told Kana that he knew exactly what she was looking for and she grinned a little at the way his low growls quickly turned into snarls that spoke volumes of his anticipation. Pointing her tongue, she began to follow the feeling of Raido's floating rib. Find the spot… Find it…

A number of things happened. Raido's fist in the sheets finally clawed at the navy fabric enough for the unmistakable sound of tearing to be heard. His back arched into the tongue that pressed hard, fast circles into the cluster of nerves that resided on the tip of his floating rib. A hoarse sound ripped its way up his chest that was most certainly deafened his next door neighbors if they were unfortunate enough to be home in that moment.

"Kitten – fuck – yes – _yes_ ," Raido's breath came in harsh, quick pants, "Oh gods – _fuck_ ! Gods, kitten – I'm –!"

In a flash if mischief, Kana used the moment to carefully balance herself on her knees, bringing the hand previously holding her weight down to cup Raido's scrotum. Adding just a little bit of chakra to her fingertips, she fondled his balls with her palm as the tips of her fingers rubbed circles into his perineum.  
He arched up off of the mattress. Kana could practically hear his teeth crack with the force of his jaw snapping shut, and felt her head spin at the salacious way he wetly snarled out words through clenched teeth.

" _Anngh_ – fuck – _kitten_ – Kana, gonna –"

Tilting her head just right – a feat in itself considering how Raido was nearly peeling away her scalp by this point – Kana wrapped her lips around the nerve cluster and _bit_.

The length in her hand stiffened almost impossibly so, giving Kana just enough time to wrap her lips around as much as she could fit into her mouth before hisballs tightened with his release.

Forget the neighbors, the entire block was probably going to be reporting a murder with the way Raido nearly shouted. His hips jerked upwards in a desperate attempt at feeling more of the wet heat that was wrapped around his erection. Kana would have probably choked if she wasn't expecting it. Instead she only closed her eyes and relaxed her throat as best she could, letting Raido thrust into her mouth as the familiar taste of his come filled her mouth.

By the time Kana pulled away to swallow, wiping her hand over his length to wipe up the remaining semen and saliva that dripped in the direction of his hips, Raido had one arm draped over his eyes and the hand in her hand went limp, dropping to the sheets. His mouth went a little slack and there was a thin line of drool that ran from his reddened lips to his jaw, his chest was heaving from struggling to catch his breath, and the sight made Kana genuinely smile as she wiped her hand on the already ruined sheets.

That dazed expression was something she missed, too.

There wasn't much time to savor the moment, however, because it was just a second later that Raido's arm dropped away from his face and both of his hands were reaching out to grab her waist, practically flinging her onto her back.

A small surprised sound squeaked past her lips as his fingers hooked under the black waistband of her panties, tugging them over her hips and sliding them down her legs in one swift motion. Raido made quick work of flinging them to some mystery location before he arranged her legs so that they were on either side of his sweaty body.

Kana's eyes darted down to his groin, expecting his penis to be flaccid and totally not hard all over again like it currently was. When she blinked her confusion at her lover, he laughed and offered a wolfish grin that made her fingers twitch.

"Remember that chakra trick you used on me when I came back from a mission?" he asked with way too much amusement in his voice. Kana nodded and he added, "I sorta figured it out for myself. You didn't think I was going to leave you hanging, did you?"

A moment passed where Kana just sort of continued to blink, but then a second later she was laughing with him and covering her face with her hands, "I've created a monster." This bed was toast.

Somewhat sated thanks to his orgasm just a minute earlier, Raido took the moment to run his hands over the milky thighs that he was positioned between. His eyes, so dark they were nearly black, roamed up and down her body for the first time since she had come home, drinking in her appearance like one would gulp down a glass of water after wandering about the Land of Wind.

Kana reached out for him; one hand rested on his collar while the other traced the outlines of his abdominals with the tip of her finger. When he finally leaned forward to crawl over her body, his weight braced on the forearms he had on either side of her head, they traded quiet smiles.

Suddenly, nothing mattered outside of that moment.

Nothing.

"I love you, kitten," Raido nearly whispered, "Don't ever make me live without you again… I don't think I could take it."

With the flick of her tongue, Kana wet her lips before tilting her face up for a kiss, "I promise," she placed a kiss on the tip of his nose when they pulled apart,

"I'm yours, Rairai. Forever."

He shifted his weight onto one arm so he could reach between them, smearing the traces of come that still leaked over the head of his swollen erection for extra lubrication before taking the shaft in hand. When his hips moved forward, and the blunt head nudged Kana's entrance, Raido released a shaky breath that sounded like it was supposed to be a self deprecating laugh, dropping his head to her shoulder.

"I'm nervous."

Honestly… Kana was a little jittery, too. Her heart was racing a mile a minute and her breathing was done in calculated movements to keep herself grounded. It had been so long… It almost felt like the first night they spent together – when Kana was still under the impression that she was a virgin and Raido just sort of went with it. Back then, he seemed so big and intimidating, and distant, unwilling to remove his shirt or let her touch his chest or shoulders. Even if he was as tender as one could be that night, and was constantly working to ensure her comfort, Kana had been terrified.

"I am, too," she admitted weakly, reaching between their bodies to join the hand he still had wrapped around his erection.

They were quiet for a few more moments after that. Their hands moved together to rub the head of his erection up and down the length of her slit, quiet little gasps accompanying small twitches from the sensation. Raido leaned back in for a long, sensual kiss that Kana gladly returned. She lifted a languid hand up to his face to run the tips of her fingers along his jaw before cupping it in her palm in a show of affection. It kept their faces together and, after a few more fleeting kisses, they positioned the tip at her entrance.

Kana lifted her hips to better acquaint him, but it still took Raido a few tries to actually push the head of his penis in. There was more resistance than he was expecting, which led to a couple of breathy laughs from the both of them, but they were eventually able to let go of his shaft so he could move on his own.

"Didn't we have this problem when we first did this?" he asked tightly, humor in his eyes but clearly trying to keep himself controlled against the intense pressure that squeezed his already painfully hard cock.

"It took half an hour just to get this far," Kana hid her wince with a strained laugh.

Raido's resolve was already beginning to crumble as he rocked back and forth to ease some of the stretch that came with the initial push; a low, throaty moan got caught in the back of his throat before he asked, "Are you alright? You're stiff."

She hadn't even realized she was holding her breath – Kana released it in one large huff and found that her muscles relaxed a little once an even breathing pattern had been established.

"I'm okay," she sealed their lips together for a brief kiss, "It's been a while. That's all."

"Shit, I'm sorry, I should've –"

Kana roughly nipped at Raido's upper lip to silence him, "I told you I'm fine. Besides…" she leaned forward, ignoring the strain on her neck, to rest her lips on the shell of his ear, "You know I always liked it when it hurt a little," Raido shuddered when her tongue traced the thin cartilage, "There's nothing hotter than when you lose it."

A low, hoarse groan tumbled from his lips as he finally seated himself completely, "Kana…" He buried his forehead in the hollow of her shoulder to keep himself grounded, "Oh my god…"

A small smile tugged at her lips and she pressed a kiss into the side of his head. The hand not still cradling his face slipped over his shoulder to rub circles into his back, rocking her hips up into his in a silent message that he could move.

Raido took the hint and slowly lifted himself back up onto his elbows, lashes fluttering a little at the way the movement caused him to shift inside of his lover, whose hips twitched a little. As opposed to slipping into the motion of love making right away like Kana had assumed he would, given how long it's been since the last time they were together like this, Raido took a moment to pause and let his eyes travel over her face. There was a little crease in his brow that told Kana that he was thinking, and his eyes, so brown they were nearly black, had acquired a gentleness to them that made Kana forget how to breathe.

They laid there staring for a good many moments. One of Raido's arms shifted so he could brush away the bangs that had had flopped over her face when he flipped her over into the pillows. No words came from his mouth, which was curved upwards in a small, gentle smile, and he let his fingers weave through the rest of her hair; it wasn't a possessive grip like how he would hold her head during sex, but more like Raido was cradling the top of her head in a tender display of affection.

Nothing was said between them but, honestly, neither of them needed to speak up. Raido wasn't the kind of person that was embarrassed about his feelings, or got confused about what they could mean, so he let them show freely in his expression. His eyes were full of a myriad of emotions that struggled for dominance, but there was one that stood prevalent in those warm brown irises.

Love.

Something sappy that Kana had probably read in _Icha Icha_ ran through her head, and she found herself giggling quietly in spite of herself.

Raido raised an eyebrow but didn't ask any questions, laughing a little, too, and brought their lips together in a tender kiss.

Kana sighed at the feeling of him sliding back only to push back in. The hand on his cheek slipped downward to follow the contours of his neck to his shoulder, coming to a stop at his clavicle; it didn't protrude as much as it used to and she wondered with detached interest if Raido had bulked up since she last touched him.

She didn't have long to wonder because right as the thought crossed her mind, because he decided in that moment to shift his knees in a way that spread her thighs further and allowed him to sink deeper into her. Kana mewled against his lips and wrapped her legs around his waist to lock her ankles over his hips and pull them closer, relishing the sharp gasp the movement elicited from him.

Soon his slow grinding turned into thrusting, and Kana brought her other hand from Raido's back so join its twin on his chest. A low moan vibrated their shared kiss when her fingertips grazed over the sensitive scarred flesh. Kana took the opportunity to slip her tongue past his lips when they parted, finding his and flicking the tip of hers against it teasingly until she felt Raido's mouth stretch into a smile against hers.

Rain. His mouth always tasted clean and sweet, like the first rain at the start of summer, where you're lying on the training field with your mouth open like a little kid as cold raindrops cooled you off. It was so different from the rich, woodsy smell of his body that Kana had been nearly floored by it when they first kissed. Now, though, as their tongues wrapped around one another, a trail of saliva dripping down their chins, she still found herself amazed at how Raido managed to be so goddamn perfect in every way she needed him to be.

The fingers on his chest curled when he groaned into the kiss and sped up his hips. Raido's breath came out in shaky pants that were lost in their kiss; when the need for air was too great he pulled back enough so that their gazes could meet but not far enough to where there was any real distance between them.  
Gods, Kana could look at this forever. Fighting the urge to let her eyes slide shut as her need built, she drank in Raido's appearance. His mouth had gone a little slack, lips parted and swollen and glistening from their kiss, his brow was slightly furrowed, his bangs were plastered to his forehead, and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple. The developed muscles in his biceps and shoulders rolled beneath tanned skin as he moved, his forearms cording as he gripped the sheets.

Shinobi hearing meant that she heard Raido's jaw snap shut just as he sped up his hips, and she couldn't fight the urge anymore. Kana's eyes slipped shut while Raido pushed into her, rolling up into him and biting her lip ruthlessly to keep her voice down.

"Don't," came his almost immediate response. When she blinked at him curiously, his eyes darkened and the hand twisting the sheets slid over her hip to steady her rocking body, "I want to hear those perfect little noises you make with me inside of you."

Whether it was from the instinctive need to please the man above her, or the way his voice was rougher, huskier, than before, Kana immediately released her abused lip to whimper. Raido released a low groan in response that went straight to between her legs.

Their gazes locked, Kana unhooked her ankles so she could bracket his waist with her legs, thighs squeezing tight. The new position allowed her to better meet his thrusts, to which Raido growled appreciatively even though it was Kana that was gasping at the way the head of his erection rubbed against her core.

Leaning in for a slow, lush kiss that contrasted the pace of his thrusts, Raido murmured, "I love you so much," against Kana's lips before pushing himself up off of his forearm and sat back on his heels with both of his hands planted firmly on her hips. The change in angle made her eyes flutter shut and both of her hands fell from his shoulders to the sheets for leverage.

"Gods, kitten," he ground out between clenched teeth, "Fuck, I missed you."

Propping herself up on her elbows, Kana let her head fall back while their hips quickened, "I missed you too, Rairai. I –" she paused when a sharp thrust forced a whimper out of her, "I missed you s-so much – _mmfuck_ – I'm so sorry for everything."

She was sorry for hiding from him after come home. She was sorry for the way she handled leaving. She was sorry for allowing her paranoia to view him as an enemy while she was on her own.

Raido's fingers tightened, "I know you are, kitten –" a satisfied grunt cut him off as she pushed back against him harder, "Look at me."

Kana's head lifted from where it was hanging between her shoulders to meet his gaze. It was dark, as if his emotions had cast storm clouds over his eyes, and filled with a startling intensity that made heat pool in her belly even as her tattooed fingers twisted the sheets. With their eyes locked everything somehow felt even more open – substantially more intimate and raw – even without her Ishikigan sharing their thoughts. A hoarse sound of pure eroticism poured past Raido's lips in response, and his hips jerked.

"I forgive you," he panted, "Everything that's happened. I - _hnng_ \- _I forgive you_." Raido slowed his hips in exchange for harder, deeper thrusts, and Kana had to gather a fair amount of discipline to not let her eyes roll back, "No - more - apologies. I hate when - you tell me you're - sorry."

Kana opened her mouth to say something in response – probably something stupid – but he took that moment to use his grip on her hips to haul her up, reminding her of just how strong he was by the time his arms circled her waist to hold her tight.

"Right now, I just need you," he panted against her lips, thrusting hard enough for Kana to have to quickly cling to him to avoid falling back to the mattress, "Touch me, kitten. Put your hands on me."

More than happy to oblige, Kana tightly wrapped her legs around Raido's hips to bring their pelvises flush as her hands slid over his shoulders to grip his back. They both moaned loudly at the way it forced his erection in deeper, as deep as it could go, and Kana whimpered when Raido opted for a quicker, almost grinding movement. It meant that his thrusts were shallow, but it increased the pressure that his cock was putting on her core.

"R-Rai…" Her hips started rocking back into his, and she could feel something akin to liquid heat beginning to pool in her groin, "Oh god…"

At the sensation of her nails biting into the skin that was stretched over his muscles that flexed with exertion, Raido growled low in his throat and the rhythm his hips had settled on hitched, "Shit…"

Sweat slicked their skin, which meant that Kana was viciously digging her nails into the skin of his upper back with one hand while she other slid down between their bodies in search of that special sweet spot.

One arm shifted up to support her upper body better, both of them tightening almost painfully when she felt that tiny nub of nerve endings.

Raido's rhythm went completely off-kilter.

"Yes – _yes_ , Raido, oh my god!" Kana's brain immediately shut off at the erratic, almost frantic pace of his hips.

He snarled wetly in response and used her arched position to capture one of her nipples between his lips, sucking harshly and lighting up her nerve endings. As his growls increased in frequency, and his words were replaced by gravelly grunts, Kana felt herself struggling to reciprocate his unpredictable movements.

When his teeth bit down, she gave up entirely.

Raido pushed her hand away from his ribs just a beat before crushing her back into the mattress, slamming his hips into hers and moving his mouth to the other side of her chest. He grabbed the back of one of her knees to push it up to her shoulder, and Kana felt her nails rake over the sweat-slicked skin of his back even if she wasn't aware of doing it.

"Rai- Raido, _please_ ," she whimpered, "Please, Rai – oh gods – don't stop!"

A low, hoarse groan was Raido's only response as he felt his lover squeeze him tight enough to snap his jaw shut. He buried his face in the pillow next to her head, panting harshly into her ear as he thrust into her body with a fervor that rarely possessed him.

Kana arched away from the mattress into his chest as she felt the coil in her groin tighten up, ready to spring. Raido's name tumbled from her lips, wrapped around whimpers and pleas for him to keep going as she teetered on that torturous edge. Feeling him lose control like this, hearing him throw away his inhibitions and snarling against her ear like some sort of animal, and knowing that she was the reason this large, calm tokujo was losing control, was quite possibly the hottest thing she would ever experience.

Suddenly his fingers were up at his lips, then down between her legs and rubbing fast, small circles exactly where they needed to be.

There was a black velvet explosion in Kana's head as his fingertips pushed her over the edge and her orgasm slammed into her. Every muscle in her body seemed to tighten up, her fingernails piercing Raido's skin and drawing blood, the leg around his waist forcing him in deeper, her eyes screwing shut, her thumb pressing hard into his cluster of nerves.

"Kitten, fuck – _fuck_ ," the tokujo roughly nipped at her ear, her jaw, her neck, before settling on sucking hard enough for the blood capillaries to burst in her dermis, "So close – I'm _right there_ – gods, fuck, kitten –" he cut himself off with another snarl as his mouth attacked the hickey he was leaving.

Still fluttering down from her high, Kana somehow managed to fine the wherewithal to roll them over so that she was straddling his hips. With one hand tightly grasping his to keep stable, the other reached behind and under her body. It was a bit of a reach, she had to arch her back and shift her hips, but it only took a couple of moments for her fingertips to graze Raido's scrotum.

"Oh, gods," his eyes rolled back for a moment as she rode him with a quick, fierce pace, "Kitten – _mmnnfuck_!"

With the use of a come-hither motion she managed to roll his balls into her hand, and Kana wasted no time in rolling them between her thumb and fingers, gently massaging the glands in her palm. Raido struggled to make words, but all he managed was a string of syllables that only sounded somewhat similar to a couple of swear words.

"Kitten – Kana – I love – _hnng_!" Raido's eyelids fluttered, and he arched away from the bed as a loud and hoarse tore past his clenched teeth. Kana could feel his entire scrotum tense in her palm as they tightened for his second release that morning, and it was only a moment later that his hips jerked beneath her and the hand holding her squeezed hard enough to break a lesser woman.

She gradually slowed her hips down to a gentle rocking to milk his orgasm and ride out the aftershocks with him. When Kana felt him begin to finally come back down to Earth, she slowly slid off of his softening cock and flopped down onto the sheets with a heavy sigh. It was only ten in the morning and Kana was about ready for a nap.

Eventually Raido's labored panting settled into just a little breathlessness, and he used the edge of the sheet to wipe away the sweat on his brow before rolling over onto his side. With a little bit of readjusting they found themselves in the same position they were in when Kana woke up – it happened to be quite relaxing and she made no effort to fight against the heavy call of sleep, allowing her eyes to slide shut.

Unfortunately for her it seemed that Raido had other plans.

"Are… Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

Kana wiggled her hips a little to assess her physical wellbeing, wincing a little, "Let's just say I'm glad that I know medical ninjutsu."

Warm lips pressed into the flushed and sweaty skin of her shoulder, "I'm sorry, I meant to be gentle," Raido placed another kiss, "I wanted to take it slow – make love to you…" he sighed, "I lost control."

"I'm fine, Rai." To prove her point, Kana reached under her body with a glowing green hand and pressed it between her thighs After a few seconds she pulled it away with a (Hidden) sigh of relief and wiped her fingers on the already ruined bed sheet, "There. Not even a little sore."

He sighed and rested his forehead on her back, "I feel like an animal."

"I slapped you, and _you're_ apologizing?"

"I deserved it..." his muscles stiffened, "I didn't handle that well. I just... I just need time to adjust," Raido pressed a tense kiss to her back, "I'm sorry."

Unwilling to get into another unpleasant conversation over this, now considering the topic of Kisame being over between them, Kana rolld over so that she was face-up, meeting Raido's worried gaze with a playful grin, "If you're that worried, make it up to me."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Get me ice cream later.

The distressed look on his handsome face almost immediately melted away and was replaced with a warm smile, "You want ice cream?"

Kana giggled, "I want ice cream."

Raido hummed, kissing the tip of her nose, "What kind?"

She thought for a moment, then snuggled closer to his chest, "Matcha."

"Alright," his hand smoothed over her thigh as he placed another kiss to her forehead, "We'll get ice cream after dinner."

Plans set, the two lay like that for a few more minutes in a comfortable silence. Raido's fingers trailed up and down the length of her torso at a snail's pace, with only just enough pressure for Kana to be able to feel it; every now and then he would pause to pay special attention to one of the many discolored scars that littered her skin, or to follow the pattern of a tattoo.

Kana's own hand rose to idly trace the contours of his chest. Her eyes slid shut, completely at Raido aske about what her tattoos were for, she answered honestly. Kana explained that the two parallel tattoos on her left forearm were to summon Hanako and Kishin, and the pattern swirling around the kanji for shield, extending down to her fingertips, was for the purpose of creating chakra barriers without wastingtime on hand seals. By gesturing to the tattoo on her thigh Kana explained that it was to release all of her chakra in a single explosion that would knock out an entire forest while dropping her levels to zero. When Raido expressed his concern, she waved him off and reminded him that the reason she kept Orochimaru's seal was because it automaticaly activated when your own chakra was depleted.

"What about this?" he motioned towards her other hand, where a single tattoo stretched up to her elbow.

Kana paused for a moment.

"Do you remember how the Kazekage was revived by an old woman from Suna?" she asked. When Raido nodded, she continued with, "It's like that. I can use this to trade my life for anyone within range. It'll heal their injuries, reverse decomposition, and so on."

The calm expression he wore turned grim as the information set in. It was likely that he was mulling over how clear it was becoming that Kana left the village with every intention to die in Itachi's place if need be.

Just as soon as it appeared, though, the dark shadow cast over his face disappeared and was replaced with a quiet curiosity as his eyes rolled over her body.

"You've changed so much," Raido murmured.

Kana's brow furrowed, "Rai, I got these _ages_ ago."

He flashed a sheepish grin, "No, I mean your body's different…" Raido reached around to grab two fistfuls of her ass, chuckling at the way her eyes widened, "You've filled out."

"Raido, you do _not_ get a woman naked and then call her fat."

Laughing , Raido shook his head and leaned forward so that he was resting on his forearms, "I'm not calling you _fat_ ," he kissed her forehead, "You just…" Wrinkles appeared on his nose when he scrunched his face up, "This is going to sound rude. But you used to be really… Small?"

Kana blinked slowly at his clumsy way of trying to not blatantly say that she was as flat as a board when she left the village, "I was on birth control since before I was ten. I 'filled out' after three years because my body was allowed to develop and get some damn curves."

Raido shrugged and captured her lips in a slow, sensual kiss, "You're beautiful no matter what," he murmured, "You know that."

It took a lot of willpower to not snort, "So you'll still think I'm pretty when I'm old, fat lady sitting on the porch?"

"As long as you're sitting next to me."

This time, Kana really did snort. Unfortunately their bout of happy laughing was short-lived, as their smiles faltered at the sound of something... Tapping?

Pulling apart, the two gave each other confused expressions, their ears straining to hear the noise again. Surely if they both heard it then it wasn't just their hearing going wonky after years of shouting orders and hearing loud explosions, right?

 _Tack tack tack_

Kana was the first to move, stepping out of her lover's embrace to roll over the torn, damp sheets to climb out of the bed. A weight began to settle in the pit of her stomach as she crossed the bedroom. What they were hearing was something that nearly every shinobi dreaded hearing on their day off - the distinct tapping of a beak against a window pane.

With no regard for the fact that she was still naked, Kana wrapped the ends of the cord around her fingers and yanked it down, already able to see the messenger hawk through the plastic blinds. Warm light of the late morning sun flooded the bedroom, forcing both shinobi to blink rapidly at the sudden change while Kana opened up the window and reached out for the scroll strapped to the hawk's back.

She half expected it to pull away, as messenger birds did when someone other than the intended recipient tried to retrieve the scroll it was delivering, but, to her surprise, the hawk actually waddled up closer to the window and turned its back to her.

"You aren't active duty anymore, are you?"

Kana shook her head. Once the scroll was removed from its bindings, she patted the bird on the head and watched it fly away, "Rai, I'm not even a reserve unit. I'm a civilian."

Which was what made this even more bizarre; hawks were only sent out for scrolls of at least A-rank information in case an enemy unit attempted to intercept it. Hawks were more durable, knew how to fight, and, therefore, had a much higher success rate in delivering sensitive intel.

What made Kana nervous, though, was how the scroll's contents were sealed.

She applied chakra to release the fuinjutsu keeping it closed before slipping a finger under the flap to pull it open.  
Scrolls with D through C rank information were simply closed with a light adhesive. B and A ranked scrolls were sealed with a special senjutsu that was dispelled with the application of the intended recipient's chakra. S ranked scrolls were sealed shut, and only revealed its coded contents with a similar technique.

Kana's eyes were met with a blank sheet once the scroll was opened.

"Kana, if you aren't on the roster, then what's going on?"

Hawks didn't deliver intel to civilians. Civilians didn't receive summons from the Hokage, from a Commander, or receive mission details. So why was she reading a hand-written scroll from Commander Hiketsu telling her to meet him in the Root compound?

"You know how this goes, Rai," Kana answered quietly, setting the scroll down on the floor once its contents were memorized, "I don't think anything's wrong, though."

They both watched black flames eat away at the thin paper, destroying its contents and any trace of it ever existing. It was a jutsu that was designed to only burn the item it was intended to destroy so, once the wooden bar the paper was glued to disappeared into smoke, the flames vanished and the flooring underneath was left untouched.

Raido sighed unhappily, eyes glued to the treated wood, "How long do I have you for?"

"You still get your vacation day," Kana forced a pleasant smile and stood up on her tip toes to plant a kiss on his jaw, "You'll be in bed by the time I'm sneaking out the window."

He made a face, "And here I was thinking that part of our relationship was over."

* * *

"I took away any semblance of your freedom in this chamber."

Kana didn't move from where she was standing. Despite this being an airtight room composed almost entirely of steel, there was a dead, musty scent to Danzo's dark chamber. At the Anbu Commander's opening, she frowned but kept silent.

"Do you remember what I told you just before we parted ways that night, Tsuki?" He didn't turn, keeping his back to his former captain.

 _"You're a good shinobi. I could have easily seen you becoming my successor one day."_

Her frown deepened, "Sir, it's hard to forget something like that."

Commander Hiketsu nodded stiffly. Even if it wasn't as severe as before, the slump in his shoulders that Kana noticed around the time of her imprisonment and trial was still present. He still had yet to turn from the abandoned throne. What was going on?

"I trust you were not followed."

"Kamui can't be tracked, sir."

Another nod, then the Anbu Commander's arms bouncedin the familiar movement of hand signs. The air about them shifted; he had just used a fuinjutsu to seal off the room. More hand seals told Kana that he was implementing a sound dampening jutsu, as well.

"The Fourth Shinobi World War has begun, Tsuki, I am sure you are well aware of this. Villages have already begun deploying troops to their designated stations," he said coolly, "To say that Konoha is lacking in manpower is an understatement that serves as an insult to the severity of the situation."

Slowly, Commander Hiketsu turned on his heel to face his former captain. Despite the two of them being so close and being trained to adapt to darkness, with no light source in the chamber, Kana could only see the view outline of his form.

"I understand that Konohagakure - myself, specifically - has already requested much of you, robbing you of any chance of a childhood and tarnishing an otherwise stellar reputation - "

"Sir," Kana took a step forward, "When I was a child I let myself be branded with a mark that told everyone that I took an oath to uphold this village's values and laws, and to protect every man, woman and child within our borders, no matter what the cost..." There was the sound of canvas twisting from her gloved fingers balling into tight fists, "Just because I don't wear a hitai ate anymore doesn't mean I wouldn't do anything to keep that oath, sir."

Commander Hiketsu reached under his cloak to reach into his pack. After some sounds of rustling, he produced a glowstick that he cracked between his fingers and tossed off to the side where it bounced and rolled across the metal floor panels. A cool blue light filled the chamber, albeit not a bright glow, and Kana could now see the almost haunted exhaustion in his eyes.

"The relief your conviction brings me is insurmountable, Tsuki," he answered while taking a step forward to rest a hand on her shoulder, "I'm glad to know you were never truly lost to us."

A pang of guilt hit Kana square in the chest. The things she had done - the things she had _said_...

The Anbu Commander's other hand came up to grab her chin when she turned it away, pulling it back up to his, "Your time for holding onto guilt is over. Your village needs you."

With a deep breath, Kana squared her shoulders and nodded once, "My orders, sir."

"You are to take command of what remains of Root," Hiketsu stepped back and fished around in his hip pouch for something, "You know these men, you can train them to fight against the Akatsuki."

"You want them to act as Konoha's line of defense."

The Commander nodded slowly, handing over an unmarked scroll, "The details are within this scroll."

She tucked it into the pouch strapped to her leg to read later, mismatched eyes never leaving his masked face.

"There's something else, isn't there..?"

The haunted look in his eyes hardened.

"There is."

* * *

It was obvious that Raido hadn't received any sleep when Kana appeared in his bedroom in a swirl of black. He was sitting with his back against the headboard, book in hand, and the lamp sitting on his bedside table was on, casting the room in a warm, orange light.

At the sudden presence of her chakra signature, he looked up in surprise and nearly chucked the book to the side.

"What..?" Raido's eyes dropped to her hands. They widened when she raised the one holding a blank mask.

"Rai... I have to leave."

* * *

Neji pressed his lips together tight enough for his teeth to press into them painfully. The finger pressing against his bare chest was glowing black for what felt like the hundredth time in however long he had been held in this godforsaken chamber, feeding a constant stream of hostile chakra into the tenktesu for the fourth gate.

It felt like venom was coursing through his entire body and, in a way, maybe it was. This was the only type of chakra he knew of that couldn't be transferred to another human without any drawbacks, which meant that his pathway system was slowly being poisoned by the man standing before him.

After what seemed like several hours, but was probably only a minute, the finger was removed from his chest. Unlike before, there was no reprieve. His only comfort was knowing that the pain and nausea wouldn't get any worse until the next round of torture began.

"You will talk, little Leaf," the man purred in his ear before stepping away, "It's only a matter of time of when."

Neji didn't understand. Their eyes glowed a beautiful, starry silver. Why resort to torture over simply taking what information they wanted?

When the siblings left the room, he leaned over to the side as much as he could in his current bound state. Foamy bile dripped to the cracked stone floor; there was nothing left in his body to vomit.

He didn't know how much more he could take.

* * *

 **Note:** So I realized that I never actually wrote a chapter where Kana and Rai were in bed together. It was only mentioned, with the exception of the party at Anko's and the scene on the couch. So I figured now would be the perfect time, since Kana's let Kisame go and they're finally able to properly put the pieces of their old lives back together.

And we're getting towards the end and now I'm sad. The ending's all written out and now I just need to make an epilogue. -sobs quietly- Thank you to everyone who has been leaving reviews (Or PMing me reviews, shout-out to Kill3rdarren for being awesome) so far. It's been a crazy, angsty ride. For those who have asked if I'll make another story with an OC, I've been toying with an idea for a while now. I need to iron out some wrinkles but I think it'll be pretty okay.


	36. Chapter 36

Raido wasn't thinking straight when he watched Kana change into her Root uniform. He wasn't thinking when he watched her quickly move through the process of sharpening Kioku before sliding it into the sheath that was attached to her jacket, just next to where her tanto resided.

He only barely felt her lips against his as she kissed him once for good luck.

It only barely registered in his brain that a uniform just like the one she used to wear had been prepared at some point, all black and red, save for the white cloak that she fastened around her shoulders.

Then, she pulled up her cloth mask, pulled a plain, undecorated Anbu mask over her face, and disappeared in a swirl of colors.

Raido wasn't thinking when he pulled the first four beers from his fridge, and he sure as hell wasn't utilizing any higher cognitive functions by the time he flung the ninth bottle onto the floor.

By the time he made his way to the Hokage Tower, after somehow dressing himself in his standard uniform, Raido only managed to acknowledge one thing: Hurt.

"You son of a _bitch_!"

Through the round holes in his dog-like mask, the Anbu Commander's eyes didn't seem even remotely surprised as he found himself slammed against the wall. Raido knew that he allowed himself to be attacked, which only made him even more furious.

"How much do you plan on taking from her before you've finally had enough?!" he barked, "How much more does she need to _break_ for you?!"

Other shinobi in the hall started to slink away to stand against the walls, simultaneously wanting to stay out of the way while wondering if they should be stepping in. Those with companions began to whisper to one another in hushed tones, not wishing to invoke the wrath of the Hokage's personal guard.

"Hasn't she done enough for you?!"

The door to Lady Tsunade's office opened noisily, nearly ripping off of its hinges from unchecked strength, "Raido! What the _hell_ are you doing?!"

Shikaku stepped out from behind the Hokage, delivering a shrewd look to each and every shinobi that made the mistake of meeting his gaze, "Don't you all have places to _be_?" he asked, each one of his raspy words full of the quiet threat of punishment if they didn't haul ass.

The hallway cleared almost instantaneously, with the exception being those who were presumably in a war-related meeting with Tsunade, who looked simultaneously shocked and infuriated.

Raido was so fixated on Hiketsu that he hardly even noticed, " _Answer_ me!"

"That's enough, kid," Shikaku began to pry his fingers away from the beige cloak that was bunched up in his fists, "You don't wanna do this."

Even if he wasn't completely wasted, his metabolism being much too fast for him to get entirely shitfaced and the open air on his way here sobering him up somewhat, the alcohol that still ran through Raido's veins kept him the angriest he's felt in years. He used his shoulder to bump the Jonin Commander away and tightened his fists, pulling the Anbu Commander back and smashing him back into the wall.

"No, I'm sick of watching everything from the sidelines," Raido snarled, "You're killing her! She only just started to finally get better, and you're already trying to –"

"Raido, _shut up_ and quit acting like you know what you're talking about."

All eyes turned to Kakashi, who had been silent up until now and wore an expression of quietly suppressed irritation that lurked behind a curtain of calm self control.

The tokujo didn't release the commander, but tore his face away from his emotionless eyes to turn his glare on his superior, "Excuse me?"

Kakashi folded his arms over his chest, eyes smoldering, "I said quit pretending like you know what it means to be a part of the Anbu Black Ops. You _don't_."

Tsunade stepped forward and held out her arm over the general's chest, "Kakashi, stop. He's drunk."

"He's been drinking, but..." his eyes didn't leave Raido's, "He needs to hear this. He needs to understand that Anbu _aren't normal people_."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he dropped the commander, shrugging off the hand that Shikaku placed on his shoulder.

With a heavy sigh, Tsunade dropped her hand to her side, where it hung limply.

"Just make it quick," she muttered, turning back towards her office, "The rest of you, follow me so we can continue our discussion."

Shikaku, Inoichi, Shikamaru and Shizune all turned on their heels to make their way back into the Hokage's office, the heavy double doors swinging shut behind them with a loud _clang_. The two Anbu units standing guard repositioned themselves to that they were standing in front of each reinforced side, arms folded over their chests defensively in case Raido decided to start attacking someone other than their boss.

When muffled voices could be heard through the walls, Raido stepped away from the Anbu Commander with his eyes still on the jonin. He felt his blunt nails begin to dig into the rough flesh of his palms.

"Why do you think they brand themselves with the Black Ops mark upon being inducted? Why do you think they have a separate barracks held in a top secret location?" Kakashi's eyes slanted, "Why do you think they can't marry, or have children?"

The tokujo squared his shoulders, unwilling to allow himself to become intimidated by the condescending tone of his superior's voice.

"They give up their freedom – their lives – for the single most important thing to them. Their village." Kakashi took a step forward, "They aren't _people_ , anymore, Raido… They're _tools_ , weapons for their kage to use however they see fit until they're too broken to be of any use anymore."

Before he could lunge for his throat, Commander Hiketsu had somehow moved fast enough to press Raido into the wall in the time it took for the thought to even cross his mind.

"How can you _say_ that?!" he cried, "You've known her since she was a _little girl_ – she would _die_ for you - you're supposed to be someone that she can _trust_!"

"Which is exactly _why_ you should be paying attention to what I'm telling you, Raido," Kakashi snapped, "Or, are you so arrogant that you believe you know what she is feeling any more than I do?"

Raido grit his teeth.

"If you truly love her, you will listen," the Anbu Commander added coolly.

"You're a member of the Hokage Guard Platoon – you're a member of one of the most elite factions in the Village Hidden in the Leaves – this shouldn't be news to someone of _your_ age and caliber," Kakashi continued, seemingly unphased by the brief scuffle, "You should have went into your relationship with Kana knowing full well that you would _never_ be her number one. So long as the Village Hidden in the Leaves stands, so long as her brothers and sisters in the Anbu Black Ops continue to exist, she will _never_ seek any other life."

Kakashi's brow knitted and, for just the briefest of moments, both he and the commander locked eyes. Pain flashed across what little of his face was exposed, and his gaze was set back on Raido an instant later.

"You need to understand that you will never have a normal life with her. You will never live with her as your wife. You will never have the babies you want –" his jaw flexed, "Because you will _never_ come first. She will _always_ choose Konoha over you."

 _"We don't _ **get**__ _happy endings."_

 _"I literally have no clue what it _means__ _to be a ninja outside of Anbu…"_

 _"I feel like I'd be letting them down if I quit, you know? Like I'd be abandoning my duty."_

 _"I can't just _ **leave**_ my men… They're my __**people**_ _…"_

 _"I don't know how to exist outside of being a ninja… What else is there for us to live for?"_

Memories of their past talks on their future together flashed through his mind's eye.

"You… She volunteered…?" Raido struggled to find words as he looked back to the Anbu Commander, whose violet eyes had taken a hollow expression from behind his mask.

He nodded slowly, "She knew she had a choice when I requested she become Lieutenant Commander," he explained in a quiet voice, "There was no hesitation on her behalf."

Lieutenant Commander…

Fully aware of how pacified Raido had become, Commander Hiketsu released him from his hold and stepped back so that he was standing by Kakashi.

"You should feel proud, Raido Namiashi," he turned towards the door of the office, where the two units stepped aside to make room for him to pass, "I could only feel honored that a one as dedicated and powerful such as she would pick me to love."

Without bothering to wait for a response, Hiketsu disappeared into the Hokage's office.

Several minutes passed in silence as Raido's brain struggled to make sense of the situation. Taking a position like Lieutenant Commander of the Anbu Black Ops, becoming second-in-command of the single most elite division in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, wasn't something you did on a whim. It wasn't something you did if you had plans to retire any time soon.

But he said that Kana hadn't even _hesitated_. She didn't take the time to consider how this would affect her life…

She had accepted the position without even talking to Raido about it, even though she had said just hours earlier that she wanted a new life with him.

 _"I am not loyal to a single being, Rai. I fight for the Leaf, and for my allies."_

Every conversation, every gesture, every mention of their future and her men…

Raido recalled the state Kana was in when she first approached him outside of his apartment, with sunken eyes ringed in purple bruises and so thin that she looked like a wraith.

Everything suddenly began to slide into place.

Kana accepted the position because Kakashi was right – _this_ was the only life she knew, or would _ever_ know. Protecting Konohagakure was just as much of a necessity for her to survive as oxygen. The need to keep her comrades and the villagers safe was an integral part of her being that ran even deeper than her unconditional love for the kids.

By the time he had the wherewithal to tear his eyes away from the closed doors, Raido felt as though he had been lanced in the chest. Pain, raw and intense, seared its way through his veins as he met the jonin's steely gaze.

"Kakashi… I can't let her go."

He couldn't. Not after everything that had happened – not after working so hard to finally get where they were now.

Kakashi looked towards the door, the quiet suffering from earlier bubbling back to the surface where it could be seen through the iron curtain that he kept down between him and the rest of the world.

"War changes people, Raido," he nearly whispered, "If you can't let go now… Then be prepared to live with a love that will leave more scars than it will heal."

And, with that, Raido was alone.

* * *

Yuki rolled over in her bed for the umpteenth time that night, staring at the night stand angrily as if it was somehow to blame for her bout of insomnia.

There had been a note on her master's door explaining that she would be at Raido Namiashi's apartment until the end of the week, for reasons entirely unexplained, and she didn't want to intrude on her master's time with her lover so she spent most of her evening on her own. Neji was away on a mission, Sai was busy with something he couldn't talk about, and Yuki found herself experiencing trouble with training herself as well as her master did. With no one to spar with she had been left to her own devices, which were mostly just her running laps around the village and performing strength exercises with her own body weight.

Training alone sucked.

Yuki reached into the bedside table for the familiar medallion resting in the top drawer. Sometimes, when she couldn't sleep, the rhythmic pulsing of Neji's chakra as he slept would lull her into a dreamless slumber.

Except… It wasn't glowing.

Fear spiked through her heart like a cold javelin, and she tossed the blankets back to sit on her knees, clutching the medallion with both hands. For many agonizingly long seconds Yuki stared unblinking at the lavender stone, which was illuminated by glowing eyes that swirled frantically.

No, no, he… This was almost literally his heart monitor. If this wasn't glowing, then that meant –

There!

At first Yuki thought that it might have been a trick of the light, but there were definitely three faint pulses of purple light.

She moved as she had been taught. Yuki tore her sleeping clothes off of her body as she sprang off of the bed, darting over to her closet and swiftly pulling on her black one piece suit. The gear in her footlocker was properly fastened just moments later, and Yuki pulled a scroll out of her belt with one hand while she bit through the callused flesh of her thumb on the other.

Her hands were already flitting through seals as she climbed out her window.

 _'I, inu, tori, saru, hitsuji – summoning jutsu!'_

White smoke filled the air with a noisy pop. Yuki didn't wait for it to clear. She activated her Kurogan and reached out to bury her small fingers in the familiar black glossy fur of the ninneko that had been summoned.

Hanako felt the urgency of the situation as soon as their psychic link had been established. Knowing exactly who to track, the bakeneko leapt up to the roof of the Shimi manor, and took off at full speed, guided only by her senses and the light of the moon shining down on them.

* * *

Kana pushed herself off of the tree she had been using to keep herself supported, wringing her bloody fingers to keep them from shaking.

It felt as if someone had taken a spoon with jagged edges and scooped out all of her insides, only leaving the empty husk of her body behind. Her entire body felt cold. Her heart was in tatters.

She couldn't stop shaking.

This had been such an easier plan in theory – run out, get what she needed, finish the mission, then go home. It wasn't meant to take longer than a couple of days, only because finding one particular objective was somewhat difficult to track down, given that it was constantly on the move.

Familiar faces nudged at the back of her mind. Sai, Neji, Yuki, Lee, Guy…

For the village, she had told herself. This was for the village. It was to keep everyone safe.

It was the perfect plan. It would be worth it.

In her head, Kana counted how many objectives were left. The first three had been acquired in the village, the fourth several miles outside of Konoha, the fifth on the island… Two more. That left two more.

Day was finally beginning to break, the first rays of the rising sun beginning to cast the trees in a powder blue glow. Shit, she was running out of time.

* * *

Yuki didn't know what she was expecting to see when she found Neji. Maybe she expected a corpse. Maybe she was expecting to find him bleeding out next to a river, dying of a stab wound.

Whatever it was… It wasn't this.

Vomit of varying freshness pooled around Neji's feet, which were secured to the stone chair that his wrists and waist were bound to, as well. Yuki recognized the cuffs as ones similar to what Kabuto used to use on his prisoners, and the cuffs that were used on her master when they thought she was some kind of threat.

Blasphemers.

Yuki rushed over to his side, cupping his face in her hands, _'Neji?'_

White eyes, unfocused and glazed over, ringed in shadows, stared straight through her into nothingness. Neji looked as if he had aged ten years in the mere weeks since he left the village. His hair hung in dirty strings around his face, having long since been pulled from its cord. Neji's cheeks were sallow. His flesh, sickly pale, was stretched tight over his sternum and rubs that protruded harshly and splattered with blood.

Footsteps echoed off of the walls; Yuki could see a man and a woman making their way into the room. White chakra encircled her fingers, which slid down Neji's face and skirted over his arms to begin treating his wounds. They were superficial, none appeared to be life-threatening or particularly deep, but it was clear that a handful were showing early signs of infection.

 _'Neji, I'll get you home, don't worry,'_ she vowed as one of the deeper gashes closed up, _'Master is going to get us. She always takes care of us.'_

Neji's brow knitted in intense concentration, _'Yuki… My mission – the bounty hunters… They're…'_ his eyes rolled back with an intense bout of nausea.

Panic began to seat itself in the pit of Yuki's stomach. She didn't know what to do. A strange chakra was mixed into his, poisoning his entire system like an injected venom. It killing him in a slow, agonizing manner, eating away at his chakra, eating away at the only thing that was keeping him alive. Yuki knew how to administer medical ninjutsu but she wasn't trained to filter chakra; that was something that only a very small handful of medical-nin from the Hyuga and Shimi clans knew how to do.

She didn't know what to do.

She didn't know what to _do!_

Turning her back to the teenager, Yuki narrowed her eyes at the newcomers, _'Are they responsible for this?'_

Two shinobi, a male and a female, turned around the corner to enter the bare chamber. They both wore goggles and face masks that covered up to their noses, and their complexions were so fair that their black hair made them look almost like one of Sai's paintings. Neither of them wore shinobi headbands but Yuki could tell by the way that they carried themselves that they weren't just second-rate mercenaries.

A cold, silent fury was building in her chest, spreading through every part of her body like an icy rapid. She didn't need a response to know the answer to her question; these two were the ones that tortured Neji. They poisoned his chakra pathway, cut his flesh, starved him, whipped his back.

They were going to die.

"Nnh..." Neji groaned behind her, "Yu... Dn..."

"Hey, you're the Black Demon Fox of the Hidden Leaf, right?" the male kidnapper asked, lips slanted into a pleased smirk, "You've got one hell of a bounty on your head."

Yuki didn't feel it was worth her time to correct him, to tell him that she only wore the mask of the Black Demon Fox; once her hand smacked against the wall, two black spheres appeared around the kidnappers.

Both of their mouths fell open in shock, and they exchanged glances that were hidden behind their heavily tinted goggles.

As Yuki brought her fingers back together to form the familiar hand seals for her clan's Iron Maiden Jutsu, however, Neji took the deepest breath he could and shouted,

" _No_! Their eyes!"

Behind her mask, Yuki's frown deepened. She didn't care about their eyes - she didn't give a damn about seeing the eyes of the two that tortured her master's most precious person, especially not if she was about to kill them, anyways. But, if Neji was so desperate that he was capable of pushing past his physical limitations to manage to scream...

Without giving anyone in the room to react, she flickered across the room and through the closest barrier, which happened to imprison the male kidnapper, and applied enough chakra to her legs so she could leap high enough to sit on his shoulders, using her knees to secure his head in place. Tiny, pale fingers wrapped around the hard plastic of his goggles, yanking hard enough for the elastic straps to snap apart with an audible _snap_ , which was accompanied by the man's pained cry. Yuki ignored his protests, though.

She was too fixated on the two swirling irises that glowed like a pair of stars.

Yuki dashed to the second sphere to do the same to the woman, snatching her goggles away and revealing identically illuminated eyes that flashed with alarm.

 _'You...'_

 _'You're like us,'_ the woman whispered internally.

"Yuki, that is enough."

The words came just an instant before a familiar chakra presence filled the room, prompting everyone in the room to turn their eyes to the woman who appeared behind Neji in a swirl of white and black. Kana practically glided across the room to take Yuki by the shoulders and pull her away from her captive, effortlessly passing through her student's chakra barrier.

"What the hell is going _on_?!" the male kidnapper snapped, as if he were in any position to be angry.

A loud crash caused the child to flinch. Once she had been set down on her feet, Yuki's master flitted over to the man and grabbed him by the throat to lift him up and slam him into the hard stone floor hard enough for a small crater to appear around where his body was fitted into the rock. It all happened so fast that, even with her dojutsu activated, Yuki hadn't been able to actually see it happen, but she was able to watch her master slowly lean over until her masked face hovered just over the kidnapper's ear.

"I would appreciate your fortune, Kyosuke," she murmured, "Do you know what I would do to anyone else that laid a finger on that boy?"

Despite her voice being monotonous, there was an undercurrent of unmatched rage in Kana's words. Yuki knew what she would have done; she had seen it happen before. Most members of the Akatsuki had staggeringly high bounties placed on them, with Itachi Uchiha being no exception with a bounty of nearly one billion ryo. An overzealous assassin thought that he could strike him in his sleep, unaware of Kana sitting on the roof - she always refused to sleep when Kisame was around, and Yuki never learned why. The assassin was never able to so much as pull out the kunai that was laced with a viscous purple venom. By the time he reached for his weapon, Kana was dragging him away with his flak jacket in one hand, his voice box in the other.

It was the night Yuki learned how to remove someone's flesh while ensuring their survival.

It was the night Yuki learned how cruel her master truly was.

"I would cut your hair, inch by inch, until there was nothing left but your scalp," Kana explained, her mask nudging against the side of his face, "Which I would feed to your sister."

Silver-white eyes flashed in alarm, or terror, Yuki couldn't tell.

"Lucky for you..." Black chakra swirled around her arm and hand, which she pulled up so Kyosuke could see, " I've never had the opportunity to take my family for granted."

"What do you want?!" the female nearly shrieked, her eyes wide and swirling like hurricane clouds, "Who are you?!"

"My name is Kana Shimi, of the Shimi Clan in Konohagakure - the same clan that gave you the kekkei tota you've been selling to the _highest bidder_ ," Kana pulled her Anbu mask to the side, her gloved fingers tugging the cloth one down to her neck as she spoke, rising to a standing position.

Yuki frowned.

"So, what, you're trying to arrest -"

"I'm the last person that should be judging you for being a petty bounty hunter, Kyrie," she cut in, ignoring the woman's glare while turning back to Neji, "In fact, I'm here to finish Neji's mission and invite you home."

Hair shifting from black to a dark grey, Kyosuke gingerly pulled himself out of the stone flooring, wincing at what was probably a broken rib or four, "What..?"

Kana kissed Neji's forehead, directly over his curse mark, "I will not waste the precious hours this boy has left to live by explaining everything to you," she carefully pulled Neji from the chair he was in, picking him up bridal style and cradling him to her chest, "But his assignment was to offer you a place to live in the village, so you no longer have to live your lives on the run from the daimyo whose cousin you assassinated."

"So, he... He wasn't trying to kill us..?" Kyrie asked weakly, pressing a hand to her belly.

Kana shook her head and beckoned for Yuki over to her side, "Neither were our clan members, the ones _you_ killed."

Fully healed, Kyosuke knitted his brow in confusion and stepped over to his sister, "So, what, you're going to drag us back to the village? Kill us if we don't comply?"

"My entire life, I was used and controlled by my clan and my kage. I never had a choice in anything that I did..." Kana waited for the feeling of Yuki's hand on her thigh to meet their gazes, "I won't do that to my own people. If you want to keep living on the run while you whore yourselves out, fine. If you want to have a home, and a bed, and a family... You know what to do."

By the time Yuki was pulled into her master's Kamui dimension, Kyrie had fallen to her knees, her eyes fixated on her twin brother.

* * *

"Raido..."

The tokujo nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the hollow voice, hoarse like two rocks grinding together, whispering his name. He knocked his glass of water over when he flinched, sending it tumbling into the scattered mass of beer bottles on his coffee table that fell on top of each other, some rolling to the floor. Even with the television on, it sounded like a series of explosions in his quiet apartment.

Raido had spent the last eleven days mulling over exactly what he would say when Kana came home. He envisioned himself breaking things off on the spot, giving her an ultimatum, starting a fight, guilting her into choosing him over Anbu for _once_. It was all Raido could think about whenever he came home to his detestably empty bedroom.

As soon as he stood from his sofa and turned to face the figure that had silently appeared in his living room, once he laid his eyes on those slumped shoulders, every thought vacated his mind, except for one.

Raido deftly jumped over the back of the couch to gather Kana in his arms, crushing her to his chest, "You're home."

She was home and alive and safe and _in his arms_.

Kana hummed and made a weak attempt at squirming away, "The blood..."

"It's nothing new to me, kitten," he muttered into his hair, where he pressed a series of kisses, "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head, "It's... It's all theirs... I..." Kana pulled back and looked down at her uniform, running her gloved palms over the blood-drenched fabric, "Rai... G-get this off me. My hands..."

Raido gently pushed her fingers from where they were fumbling with the clasps of her gloves, "Alright, kitten, sit down. Let's get out out of this."

Worry lanced through his heart at just how pliable Kana was as she allowed herself to be guided over to the nearest living room chair. She wasn't stumbling and it didn't look as if she was dazed or disoriented, but it was clear as day that Kana wasn't entirely with him in that moment. Purple and red eyes darted back and forth behind her Anbu mask, taking in every detail of the apartment and frequently checking the windows and doors. Every muscle in her body was taut as if Kana was taking refuge in hostile territory, and not sitting in her lover's apartment as he made quick work of removing her cloak and unfastening her gear.

The cloak wasn't the only part of her uniform that was completely covered in blood. It drenched the front of her uniform and soaked through her gloves so that when Raido peeled them away, a thin sheen of red was smeared over her skin and caked under her trimmed nails. This level of carnage was something that Raido had unwittingly become accustomed to, given the fighting style that was associated with her bloodline traits, but an assassin _knew_ blood splatters. In his late teens he had taken a course specifically on crime scenes and what kind of injuries could create what kind of a mess, both on the scene and on the assassin. These weren't the blood patterns of a person that fought by tearing other human beings to shreds.

Not only that, but where was the gore? When you pulled out someone's throat or slashed their belly open, there would be miniscule remnants of flesh or muscle tissue snagged in your glove fibers, but this was nothing but blood. While Raido had no doubt that Kana would be capable of removing the fragments, why would she blatantly leave the blood in her clothing?

The splatters weren't from kenjutsu, either. When blood splashed onto an attacker, it was typically more of a light spackling straight across the chest. In fact, Kioku was all but entirely spotless, not even a speck of blood anywhere on the handle.

So what did she mean by it was "Theirs"?

Up on the floor above them someone must have dropped a pan or a platter. The clanging sound could be heard through the floor as it bounced around on the wood panels, and every muscle in Kana's body stiffened as tomoe in her red eye seemed to pulse.

"Let's get you cleaned up," Raido nearly whispered, helping her to her feet once everything but her bra and panties were peeled away. A shower, warm food, sleep, and hot coffee in the morning was the universal prescription for shinobi coming home from exceptionally rough missions, and Kana was correct in saying that she had no injuries that needed healing so there was no need to put those needs to the side. Once he washed away the blood and dirt, the remnants of whatever happened during her assignment, Raido would get her in bed for a nap and wake her up for dinner. He wasn't much of a chef but he was pretty sure some simple donburi would be acceptable.

The hiss of the shower sounded unusually noisy in the otherwise still silence of the bathroom, and it nearly drowned out Kana when she whispered,

"You were drinking..."

Raido stripped out of his t-shirt and jeans in attempt to give himself a second to think of some sort of excuse, but he knew it would be useless just by the keen way those mismatched eyes stared at him in wait. This wasn't just his girlfriend, the love of his life, this was the Lieutenant Commander of the Anbu Black Ops. Raido would have better luck trying to come up with a story to Ibiki about how Genma came over for drinks last night.

He held out his hands to take Kana by the waist before guiding her into the shower, "I was."

Mismatched eyes widened, "Because of..?"

"Because I love you," Raido pulled her close to seal their lips together in what was a long overdue kiss, savoring the sweet, clean taste of Kana's mouth, "Because I love you, and I worry."

A small broken sound passed through her lips, "Raido…"

Backing her into the heated stream, he didn't break their shared kiss. Raido's lips were gently molded against hers, which were a little chapped from what was probably dehydration, and his hands firmly held Kana's waist to keep her pressed into him. Raido needed to remind himself why he went into this so many years ago. He needed to remember that he knew that things would be tough from the get-go, that this was nothing new simply because Kana had been on a break from the service.

As Kana's hands slid between them to rest over his chest, Raido reminded himself of the nights they shared together even before the two made things official between them, of the mornings where he woke up to the pleasant surprise of her limbs still wrapped around him when he had been sure the night before that she would sneak out to the barracks as he slept.

Feeling the warm water soak their hair and wet their skin, slicking their embrace, Raido told himself that he had always known that the village would take precedence over their relationship, and that was why he grew to respect Kana so much as a shinobi. It was why, as they laid in that hospital bed together, he told her that he needed her specifically – because Raido needed someone that understood the hardships and sense of duty that came with being a dedicated soldier.

And, yet, as he felt Kana lean her weight into him, Raido was reminded of exactly why he put off his retirement for so long; why he rejected Shizune's advances and refused to see anyone new even after two years of Kana being marked a traitor.

It was because she always came home to him.

She no longer hid in her apartment, or drowned her stresses with a bottle of sake, or ran to her people. Kana came home to him. She shed her uniform, dropped the hard exterior of an Anbu operative, and allowed herself to fall apart into a raw, shuddering mess. When she was with Raido, she was no longer the lieutenant commander of the Anbu Black Ops. She wasn't a former member of the Akatsuki. Raido wasn't a member of the Hokage Guard Platoon, and he wasn't a revered tokubetsu jonin that specialized in assassinations and stealth missions.

When they stood together like this, with their nude forms pressed together, and their tongues leisurely exploring the familiar territories of each others' mouths like it was the first time, titles, stigmas and facades were stripped away until the only things left were the only things that mattered – _them_.

Finally releasing Kana's waist in order to reach for the wash cloth hanging over the shower rack, Raido pulled his lips away to rest his chin on the top of her head. Despite Kana having grown a few inches, the height difference was still too much for him to lean down comfortably and his neck was beginning to ache.

"Commander Hiketsu…" Kana's already hoarse whispers were nearly drowned out by the sound of the water splashing off of the tiled wall and porcelain tub, "He assigned me to – to command Root… He wants it to grow into an official sector…"

Raido ran the lathered cloth over her shoulders, rubbing it into the dirt and grime that gathered at the nape of her neck, "I was informed of your promotion."

"I wasn't thinking, I'm so wired to just do what he asks… I just said yes a-and, Raido," she buried her face in his chest, "I'm not… I can't – I can't do this…"

Ivory skin flushed pink from the warm water heating it up, and Raido was troubled to feel her muscles remain iron-like beneath his hands, "You know you can."

"I'm not worthy –"

"It doesn't matter if you feel unworthy," he corrected as he wiped away the dirt that was caked to her lower back, "They need someone who knows them. They need someone that understands how they work."

When Danzo was first killed by the Uchiha boy, Raido watched what had happened when Tsunade made the mistake of attempting to assimilate Root into the rest of the force. There was a total lack of chemistry on teams, fights broke out in the barracks, missions bombed, and, to describe it in a word, the result had been nothing short of chaos.

Root members were more than just emotionless shinobi, they were like a totally different brand of human that no one could understand. They needed someone to direct them so continue to provide them with a purpose, but it had to be someone that had extensive experience with them as both a part of their world, and as a leader within their ranks. Records showed that there were only two people that knew life as both a shinobi and a Root member, but Yamato didn't spend time as a division captain like Kana did.

"What… What if I…"

Raido turned her face up to place a kiss between her eyes, "You won't fail."

Kana was silent as he finished washing away the layers of grime away from her body. The quivering muscle tension in her legs and back spoke for her; the shower wasn't helping as much as it should. Her neck was rigid when Raido rolled her head in his hands to clean the blood out of her hair to revert it back to its usual shade of silver-purple. Her eyes were still two mismatched Rinnegans staring blankly up at him, almost glazing over with each passing moment.

Every shinobi knew the signs of a breakdown. They were taught to keep an eye on each other and pick up on the subtle signs as they presented themselves, especially when it came to bachelors that lived alone.

Raido shut off the water and helped Kana out of the tub, feeling something gnaw at the center of his chest until a tiny little hole formed. He grabbed two towels off of the rack and handed one to her, "Dry yourself off, kitten."

She moved mechanically, but a gear seemed to shift in her head as she wrung out her hair and chased the water droplets that skidded down her legs. When she was done, Raido grabbed a brush and traded it for the towel, "Comb your hair over your right shoulder. Don't braid it."

Raido needed someone that trusted him so wholeheartedly that they were willing to bare even the worst parts of themselves to him. He needed someone that could depend on him, and he knew that Kana needed someone that she could rely on to catch her when she fell, and to help her back on her feet. She needed someone to take care of her once she was done taking care of everyone else, and Raido needed someone to take of.

In a way, it only made sense that things would turn out like this.

He took a moment to admire the way that her damp hair tried to cling to her skin, wisteria-colored tendrils curling around one of her exposed breasts and sticking to her shoulders. Looking at her, it was difficult to not appreciate the gentle curves that made up her body, from the dip in her waist to the developing muscles in her thighs, to the smooth black lines of ink that formed complicated patterns in her otherwise pale flesh.

Warmth filled the aching hole in Raido's chest when her Rinnegans faded to green.

Those eyes would surely be the death of him.

"Kneel in the center of the bed," he ordered softly, nudging the center of Kana's back. While she was climbing over the duvet he opened up the nightstand drawer and pushed aside the kunai and shuriken there to grab the ninja wire that was shoved into the back corner.

Raido moved swiftly, positioning himself behind Kana and positioning her arms behind her back, one on top of the other, before pulling the wire out of its spool. With a few practiced movements Raido was able to weave the wire from one wrist to the other, tying the knot off in the center. The cable was thin so it cut into her skin a little as he pushed her down onto her front, and the thought crossed his mind that it might be a good idea to get proper rope for the future, but, for now, it would get the job done. The ninja wire that he was reinforcing with his chakra was enough to put her in the state of defenselessness that Raido knew she needed.

He straddled her thighs and leaned over her prone form, his lips brushing over the silky tip of Kana's ear.

"The word to stop," he demanded quietly, lowering himself down so that their bodies were pressed flush.

She needed to not be the one taking care of everyone else. She needed to not be in charge of someone else's well-being. She needed to not be the one in charge of seven hundred men. She needed to not be the shinobi that trained until her skin split apart and bled.

Kana's slid shut at the sensation of his weal-like scars skimming over her back, "Will-o-wisp."

Raido pressed a kiss to her cheek and brought his hands up from the sheets to grab at her ass, feeling himself begin to swell at the way she twitched beneath him, "The word to warn me."

"Dearest."

Satsifaction brewed in his chest as he pushed himself upwards to sit back on his feet. As his hands gently kneaded the flesh and muscle beneath them to warm them up, he watched her squirm against the sheets, testing the strength of the wire and grinding her forehead into the pillow when Raido angled his hips so that his length rested over the crease where her thighs met.

Raido remembered when Kana would lash out, almost violently so, when he tried to hold her down in the past. It wasn't that he meant to restrain her or take away her freedom, he simply thought it was hot to pin someone's hands over their head.

He blamed Genma for that, and for the dark scar on his palm from when Kana sent him to the hospital in need of stitches.

In a startling flash of clarity, Raido finally saw what the dotted rings of white on Kana's shoulder were. It was _this_ – it was her allowing herself to be vulnerable and helpless and controlled by someone that was willing to shoulder the fear and ghosts that lingered with shinobi throughout their lives. It wasn't just Kisame marking his territory, it was a series of reminders.

The thought should have infuriated Raido. The idea of her sharing this with another man – an enemy, no less – should have lanced through his heart like a cold spear.

Did it make him want to fuck her even more desperately? Of course. The undercurrent of jealousy made Raido want to shove her legs open and bury himself inside of Kana hard enough for him to somehow tattoo his scent into her skin, so anyone who came near her would know that she was his.

But, in a more rational part of his mind, Raido was _thankful_. He was thankful that Kana had someone that was willing to provide the catharsis she needed because, undoubtedly, Raido knew that she would have broken far sooner than she did, and no one would have been capable of piecing together the fragments that were left behind.

"Count for me," he commanded before bringing his hand down sharply.

There was a loud crack in the room that nearly drowned out the surprised gasp that Kana released, "One."

The second slap came a little harder, and Raido felt a bolt of arousal shoot through him at the sight of her raising her hips into his hand.

"Two."

Kana screwed her eyes shut and buried her face into the pillow when a third hard smack, and then a fourth, came down on her, each time a little harder than the last and each time alternating between sides. The calm, quiet control Raido exuded was part of why she loved him so much but, as he rested for a moment to place gentle kisses over the reserve seal on her back, Kana felt like it was going to make her crazy. Her breath came in desperate, almost frenzied, pants, and she lifted her hips up to grind against his heated arousal.

A low growl was her reward, and Raido grabbed her waist with one hand to stabilize himself while he brought his hand down hard enough for pain, hot and white, to flash across her skin.

Finally, tears sprang into her eyes, "Five…"

The sixth slap was enough for the sick nausea in her stomach to be forgotten. The seventh came down with such a burning intensity that Kana was certain that Raido was hurting himself, too, and she could finally hear the words tumble out past her lips between gasps and sobs. Words of worship and love and admiration were interspersed by obedient counting and unsteady weeping.

When Raido's hand came down for a tenth blow, Kana choked on her own tears and only barely managed to cough out, "T-ten..."

He was so perfect. Everything about him was so beautiful, so loving, so kind and strong. Raido received so little but deserved so much that it was heartbreaking. Kana knew that she could live a thousand lifetimes and never deserve Raido and what he provided. She could meet every other person on the planet and know that she would never find anyone that was as understanding and caring as he was.

Kana's wails were muffled by the pillow that was clenched between her teeth as Raido's hand came down for a twelfth hit, the sweat from both of their bodies enhancing the impact. Physical pain wrapped around the pain that lingered from seeing her parents' bodies for the first time, tucking it away to some place safer than the forefront of her mind. It wiped the image of gristle that clung to the black receivers that she pushed through the bodies she had uncovered.

Raido watched the tension bleed out of her body as she nearly screamed against the fifteenth, and final, slap. His hands burned. His shoulders and arms ached. Sweat dripped down between them as he slid a knee between her thighs to part them. He remembered the first time he had done this, acting off of her signals and what Genma had told him. Kana's crying scared the hell out of him, but now Raido knew that she wasn't crying because of something he did wrong.

It was everything he was doing right.

Grabbing both of her shoulders for leverage, Raido squeezed hard enough for his dull nails to bite into her skin and entered her body with a harsh thrust. The sudden pressure around his cock was amazing, so hot and tight he thought he might pass out, and Raido knew he didn't need to wait for her to adjust even though he was well aware of how stretching her and forcing himself to the hilt was painful.

So much had changed in the years since they shared their first kiss on his couch. No longer did he flinch away from her mouth, and his own insecurities, when she sought out his scars. No longer did she violently tear herself away in fear of being restrained. They were no longer afraid of the dark places of their hearts; they didn't bother with hiding from them, or hiding them from each other. She wasn't afraid of becoming attached, of being in too deep with someone. He wasn't afraid of being abandoned for something better. Raido didn't need marriage or children of his own; that kind of anchor was no longer required for him to feel comfortable and safe with her.

They were all they needed to make things work.

Raido's hips moved with a force that demanded the exertion of every muscle in his body. The hands on Kana's shoulders kept her from rocking beneath him, so every rough thrust went unmitigated as he made love like his life depended on it. He was pouring everything he had into every movement, spurred on by the fantastic bliss of Kana's body and the desperate keening and nearly incoherent rambles of praise and thankfulness that engulfed his consciousness.

Kana's orgasm only barely registered in his brain. Raido could feel her squeeze him so tightly that every nerve ending in his body lit up like fireworks, as if she was trying to wring his own orgasm out of him or tear him apart, he wasn't sure. The muscles under his fingers tensed and her bound hands clenched into tight fists, but Raido didn't even notice.

Raido wanted to pay more attention to the delicious mewls Kana released into the pillow as her body twitched from the aftershocks, but time seemed to stop as his own orgasm crashed into him hard enough for purple and red starbursts to dance in his blacked out vision. He felt heat spread from his chest to his toes and cheeks. His fingers raked down from Kana's back to her hips, leaving angry red streaks and droplets of blood in their wake. A sound tore up Raido's throat that sounded much too raw and animalistic to belong to him as he pressed his hips against hers in a final last-ditch effort at feeling as much of Kana's body as possible when the pressure coiling in his loins finally sprung. It felt like he was shattering into a million pieces, and he clung to her body as if it was the only thing holding him together.

Exhausted, quiet whimpers pulled him out of his dazed state, and Raido left the dark comfort of his closed eyelids to see what he was aiming to achieve. Slowly, he slipped free of Kana's body and released the chakra in the ninja wire so he could untie it.

When Raido laid down next to her, he gathered her up in his arms so that their sweaty and heated limbs tangled together. He pushed her hair out of her face to press a kiss to her damp forehead before cradling it to his chest, sighing contently at the hail of sweet, tender kisses that Kana showered him with.

"I love you… I love you so much…" she whispered hoarsely, "You're so perfect, Raido, I love you so much…"

Fuck, he would never get enough of her. He'd die before he ever got his fill.

Feeling almost as tired as Kana, Raido looked over at the clock on his nightstand. It was only a little after two in the afternoon.

A small smile tugged at his lips when he turned back to his lover, who wasted no time in falling asleep. Half of her body was draped over his like she was ensuring he couldn't leave the bed, though Raido didn't really mind. While his fingers combed through Kana's tangled wet hair, he was simply pleased to see that she was, at last, sated and relaxed enough to catch up on the sleep that Raido knew she didn't allow herself during her mission.

With a happy sigh Raido held her tight to his chest and sagged into the duvet that was rapidly becoming damp from their combined sweat. He'd take a short nap before getting up to clean the mess that the living room was left in, maybe take another quick shower, then work on getting dinner ready.

* * *

 **Note:** -sighs- Two chapters left. I'm gonna miss this.


	37. Chapter 37

**Note:** And, thus Kana's, journey concludes.

* * *

Laying in his bed, Neji was fast asleep, knocked out by the last of the sedatives he had reluctantly taken to get through the worst of his chakra poisoning with little discomfort. Lady Tsunade told him that he wouldn't be able to return to the battlefield any time soon due to both the poisoning and the injuries he had received during his torture sessions so, once he was discharged from the hospital, he spent much of his time in the Hyuga manor to handle the affairs of the family in Hiashi's absence.

Next to him was Yuki, who seemed to have assigned herself as his personal assistant when she wasn't following her master around – or his bodyguard, sometimes Kana honestly couldn't tell. Her hitai ate was tied around her head like a bandana with the metal plate facing forward in a way that, at times, reminded Kana of Hayate, especially with the way her hair was cut to her chin and her bangs would sometimes bunch to the center of her forehead when she trained exceptionally hard.

When Kana entered the room, Yuki looked up from the textbook in her lap and beamed, setting it aside on the nightstand so she could rise from the chair she had pulled up to Neji's bed.

"Master," she greeted happily, "Training?"

Kana looked down at her rather unprofessional appearance, noting the dirt that was caked into her uniform and exposed flesh. With Naruto and Sakura deployed on a mission, and Guy working on an assignment of his own, Kakashi had shown up on her doorstep insisting that they race around the village and spar; he laid into Kana so hard that she found herself opening five gates and almost having to use her reserve seal.

In other words, it was like any other training session.

She nodded and beckoned for Yuki to follow her out into the hallway, "Your team is looking for you. It's time for you to go on a mission."

The child frowned, _'I don't want to go on a mission.'_

"You had the option to not go into the service, kid," Kana shut the door behind them and started down the familiar corridor, "You knew that you would have to take missions, eventually."

 _'I hoped they would be with you.'_

It was her turn to frown, "A brand-new genin isn't going to be deployed on an S-ranked assignment –"

"I can do it!" Yuki exclaimed, the words coming off somewhat clumsily as she struggled to enunciate.

Kana sighed and stopped, dropping down into a crouch so that they were eye to eye. Even without the use of their link she could see and feel the stress emanating off of her student like an aura, and it broke her heart a little to see her this upset over a brief separation.

"Look, it's not gonna be that long," she explained, reaching out for her waist, "C-ranked escort missions like this usually only take a week or so, and you'll be so busy that you won't have time to be bothered over who your teammates are, or aren't."

Yuki stepped into her embrace and slipped her arms around her shoulders, _'Can't you just come with us?'_ she buried her face in Kana's neck _, 'I don't want to go anywhere without you.'_

The sensation of her heart feeling overfull made her chest ache in a bittersweet way, and Kana locked her arms tight around the child so she could lift her up as she stood, "I know, baby, but I have to take care of things here."

Setting up a training regime for Root – or, well, Chubu, as it was now called - was a lot more difficult than she had initially anticipated, and it was taking up most of the time she would like to be spending with her family.

Family…

Nine years ago, if you had told Kana that she would have any semblance of a proper family, she would have probably decked that person as hard as she could to remind you that it isn't necessarily a smart idea to tease a member of Anbu over something that sensitive.

As she stepped out into the entry way, her heart lifted at the sight of Sai leaning against a wall in wait.

"Are we all set?" he nodded at the child that was still clinging to Kana's front.

"How long are you back for?" Kana asked as they made their way out of the estate.

Sai thought for a moment, "Team Kakashi returns to the front lines in eight days, if I am not mistaken."

The sweetness from earlier dulled to a more somber placated feeling. If it were up to Kana she would be out there, too, with her brothers and sisters, and her most precious friends, fighting against the war that she helped start. She would be on the front lines fighting against the reincarnated shinobi and White Zetsu, against Obito and Kabuto. And Sasuke…

Kana tightened the arms she had around Yuki as if doing so would put a block to the pang of regret that burned hotly in her chest. She wouldn't ever dare to play god, but what she wouldn't do to go back and stop herself from making all of those mistakes, from giving up on Konoha, from urging Sasuke to join Obito in his cause…

But Commander Hiketsu was right – her village needed her. Konohagakure needed her here, at home, now, to protect it from invaders that were sure to come in their state of weakness. Focusing on her guilt would distract her from what mattered most right now.

A gentle hand at the small of her back pulled Kana out of her musings, and she looked up to meet Sai's gaze. When he saw her look of confusion, his tender expression faltered and he withdrew his hand to rub the back of his head nervously.

"Ah, I apologize… I saw that, when you were upset, Neji would do that in a comforting gesture…" Sai trailed off, cheeks flushing a little.

Kana smiled and shifted Yuki's weight so she could reach out to entwine their fingers. She said nothing, but it seemed to be enough for Sai to ease up as they made their way towards the front of the village. Because he was off duty Sai wasn't wearing his gloves with his Shimi tunic, so Kana could see the discolored edges of his fingertips where old calluses resided. They were almost exactly like the pattern of calluses on her own hands, different only in the lack of scarring, and she felt a twinge of satisfaction.

He really was her baby brother, wasn't he?

They walked like that for the next forty-five minutes. Not much was said, though that was probably because they didn't need to exchange any words – they never did, really. Much of their time alone together in the past was spent in a comfortable silence as they simply enjoyed one another's company, with that silence only being broken every now and then for meaningless talk, usually Sai asking about peoples' normalcy or turn of phrase.

Eventually, though, they began to approach the village entrance where Yuki's team would be waiting, and Kana found herself reluctantly setting her down on her own feet.

"Come on, this isn't how a shinobi acts when they're about to go on a mission," she said as sternly as she could manage through the growing lump in her throat, "Shinobi don't cling to their mothers like infants."

It was a slip of the tongue, a slip that caught both of their attentions. Sai blinked in surprise as Yuki's eyes flashed, pulling her face out of where it was buried into Kana's clothed belly to peer up at her curiously.

Kana wasn't about to let her get distracted, "Pull up your mask and put on your goggles. You don't get to be a little kid, anymore."

Ever the obedient student, Yuki nodded and did as she was instructed, hiding her swirling silver eyes behind the tinted goggles that her master had given her, and pulling her black cloth mask up over her nose before sliding the too-big fox-shaped Anbu mask to hide the rest of her face.

"Remember to eat rations and drink enough water, and always listen to everything Ko says," she continued, hearing her voice being to waver, "Your sensei is your leader. Give him the same respect you would give me, but don't argue. I'll be speaking with him when he gets back to hear how you did."

With a quiet sniff that was muffled by her mask, Kana took her by the shoulders and spun her around to push her back towards the busy road, "Go. You've made them wait long enough."

Sai smiled and waved, "Good luck."

A moment passed where Yuki seemed to hesitate, as if she was still unsure of what to do. Then, she turned around with a wave that mirrored Sai's, with words passing through her lips that were nearly lost in the noise of the bustling crowd.

Nearly.

For the second time that day Kana's heart felt both overfull and pained as she watched the tiny girl weave her way through the sea of people in the direction of the village gates. She clutched her chest with one hand, twisting the fabric that covered it, and squeezed her brother's hand with the other when he slipped his fingers over her gloved palm.

"I love you, too, baby."

* * *

Working in an office was not something that Kana believed she would ever get used to.

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, which was easier said than done with her mask on. Paperwork was fine on its own, it wasn't anything new to the shinobi, but she hated that all of her work needed to be done in the office that she had been assigned to. Mostly, Kana just didn't like being forced to sit in one spot for too long.

Signing the mission report, she sealed the file and set it on top of the growing stack in her out box - not like there was anyone that would be emptying it for her. Jeeze. Kana knew that this was an important job, but would her life really be nothing but this from now on? Filling out paperwork and reviewing mission reports on the floor below the Hokage's office?

And then there was the clan to manage…

"You're sure you want to do this?" Guy asked as if reading her thoughts, handing over another scroll that needed to be reviewed.

Kana frowned, "I don't _want_ to do it, but I need to accept responsibility."

Either because they were scared into submission, or because they actually felt guilty for what they had done, Kana found out upon returning with Neji that the Shimi clan had spared what members they could, in conjunction with the Hyugas, to create a small number of teams to find and invite kekkei tota users home from their undeserved exile between war-related assignments. Neji, being the loving brother as he was, volunteered for this small division so Kana could have more than just Yuki around to relate to.

This was shortly before she found his team members' corpses in the forest and tracked their attackers to where their temporary base was located in an abandoned bunker from the third war.

Of course, it couldn't be as simple as just the clan wanting to invite their exiled members home.

Now she was being asked to become the head of the clan, that way the Kanas could rest assured that this wasn't some sort of trap, or an attempt at enslavement. Although it meant that she would have to move into the Shimi manor and it would be a massive pain in the ass, Kana could see how it would make sense – she _was_ the one that insisted on reform, after all.

That didn't make it any less annoying as shit. How was someone with no large-scale leadership experience supposed to take charge of an entire Anbu division _and_ a clan that had enough problems to make a daimyo's head spin?

"What about Raido?"

Mismatched eyes flitted up from the mission request, "What about him?"

Guy frowned, "Is he okay with this?"

She looked back down at the scroll, "He understands."

"Kana…"

"Dad, I'm not selfish," Kana reached into her desk to grab a specially marked file before handing it over to the jonin, "I really did take him into consideration."

The sounds of paper rustling could be heard in the silent office as he peeled away the flimsy plastic seal to open up the manila folder. Even with her eyes locked on the assignment that she would probably assign to Tatsuma, Kana knew that Guy was staring wide-eyed at the special request form, his thick eyebrows raised high enough to be hidden behind his glossy bowl cut.

"This is…" his smile rang in his voice as he spoke, "You're getting married?!"

 _"You are to take command of what remains of Root," Hiketsu stepped back and fished around in his hip pouch for something, "You know these men, you can train them to fight against the Akatsuki."_

 _"You want them to act as Konoha's line of defense."_

 _The Commander nodded slowly, handing over an unmarked scroll, "The details are within this scroll."_

 _She tucked it into the pouch strapped to her leg to read later, mismatched eyes never leaving his masked face._

 _"There's something else, isn't there..?"_

 _The haunted look in his eyes hardened._

 _"There is."_

 _Kana steeled herself._

 _"_ _You are to utilize the abilities of your Rinnegans to recreate the Six Paths system that Nagato used to destroy the village,_ _"_ _he explained grimly,_ _"_ _Whatever bodies used are up to your discretion so long as you do not desecrate the graves of any former Kage, and that their existence remains a secret to anyone but you and myself._ _"_

 _"_ _A secret guard_ _…"_ _her frown deepened,_ _"_ _Not even Lady Tsunade..?_ _"_

 _Hiketsu stiffly shook his head,_ _"_ _The Kage plan to fight on the front lines once Obito Uchiha joins the battle, and we have confirmed reports of him wielding the Rinnegan in one eye. No one but us can know about this._ _"_

 _Or else they would risk the secret being revealed through his own Path._

 _"I have a demand._ _"_

 _Hiketsu_ _'_ _s eyes widened from behind his mask, only just so, but Kana knew that it was more out of genuine surprise than anything else. There had never been a moment when she requested something from him, when she didn't just wordlessly accept his orders._

 _"_ _You_ _'_ _re right, Commander, I_ _'_ _ve never had any sort of freedom,_ _"_ _her voice wavered slightly as she spoke, understanding that this was a serious line to cross,_ _"_ _Konoha never allowed me to have a childhood, or a life of my own. It barely allowed me to have friends_ _–_ _friends that were always taken away from me_ _…"_ _The memory of Itachi on the night he fled the village, and Genma_ _'_ _s confession in the forest, made her fists clench,_ _"_ _Men I loved were killed by Leaf shinobi_ _…"_ _Kana fought against the burn in her eyes when Shisui_ _'_ _s and Kisame_ _'_ _s faces flashed across her vision,_ _"_ _I won_ _'_ _t let it take anything else away from me._ _"_

 _The Anbu Commander was silent, though something in his demeanor shifted._

 _"_ _I_ _'_ _ll take the position, and I_ _'_ _ll leave to retrieve bodies tonight, but you have to let me marry Raido and adopt Yuki. I refuse to take no for an answer._ _"_

 _For the first time in the years they had known each other, Hiketsu **chuckled**. _

_"_ _Is that all?_ _"_

The lieutenant commander rolled her eyes, though she hid a smile behind her mask as she pulled out a blank scroll and popped the cap off of her pen, "It's just a chit, sensei. It still has to be submitted for Lady Fifth's approval." Which Kana wouldn't be requesting until after the war.

Guy was practically glowing when he handed the file back, "Still, baby! I am so very happy for you two. This is a beautiful thing that should be celebrated! When did he propose?"

Kana lifted a slender eyebrow, "Who said anything about proposing?"

Understandably, Guy looked confused, "You filled out a chit that your commander signed off on. Did Raido not propose marriage to you?"

"Dad, a soldier who proposes in the middle of a war isn't someone that should be proposing."

He blinked.

"It's just…" Kana bit her lip and paused in the middle of copying the scroll's contents, "We all know what kind of life he wants. He wants marriage, and children, and a house to call his own, and…" she pulled her Anbu mask to the side to reintroduce her face to something other than warm, stuffy air, "He deserves that."

Instead of the expected nod of understanding, Guy's cheery demeanor quickly morphed into an expression that wasn't too far from when he saw Lee rebreak one of his legs after his first Chunin Exam.

"You are a strong, grown woman, and I have no right to question your motives after everything that has happened in recent years," he said slowly, "But, Kana... Is this a path you truly wish to take?"

Like earlier, the kunoichi immediately opened her mouth to respond with "Of course," but quickly stopped herself. Kana's eyes left her father's to fall to her desk, which was covered in scrolls and folders and stacks of paper held together by clips. Years ago, this was exactly what she had wanted; she wanted to be in a leadership position in Anbu with Raido by her side and her friends at her back. Now...

"It is expected of me," Kana finally answered after several seconds ticked by, "I told you that I must accept responsibility."

Through his dark irises, she could have sworn that she saw some of Guy's heart break when he murmured, "This is not the life you yearn for." It wasn't a question.

Kana thought back to the night she and Kisame shared useless facts about each other in the bathroom of their shared hotel room, about how she actually imagined what their children would look like. For a moment, she allowed herself to remember when, for that brief time in bed, they planned to run away from the lives they led.

When did she ever fantasize about a forever with Raido? Being with him, yes, but it was always in a present tense…

"I love him," she whispered.

She did. Kana truly, deeply, _honestly_ loved Raido. He was warm and kind and strong, and any woman would be so lucky to have him by her side. But... Being with him was _easy_. It was not difficult to love and appreciate someone that was nothing but accommodating and cared with every fiber of his beautiful being.

Learning to love someone that challenged you, however... That was exciting. It was an adventure. It wasn't easy, fighting was all too common, but it kept you on your toes in a way that made life a little brighter.

"I have been blessed with a man that is willing to give me everything he has," Kana cleared her throat and continued to write out Tatsuma's orders, "It is only fair that I reciprocate some of that kindness."

Guy seemed to deflate in his chair in a manner that left him looking small and disappointed, and it took him a handful of moments to gather his thoughts. Tapping floated up from her pen striking paper to fill the empty air between them, which grew heavier with each passing minute.

"You will never change, will you?"

A cloud of black ink pooled beneath Kana's pen when she paused for a second time, looking up in confusion. Guy's eyes were focused on the floor, his large hands balled into tight fists that trembled slightly over his green-covered knees.

"Instead of embracing your own individual dreams, you are allowing yourself to put aside your own wants and needs for the good of others," Guy explained in a voice that was much too quiet for his normally boisterous persona, "You refuse to live any life other than that of a model shinobi, who leads and proves herself as a protector."

"Would you prefer I go back to _hating_ shinobi?" Kana's eyes narrowed, "You want me to scratch out the Leaf symbol on my headband and go rogue?"

Guy suddenly leaped up from his chair to meet her gaze with a familiar intensity in his eyes that burned hotly, "I want you to, for once, do what _you_ want! Did _nothing_ I said that night about Kotetsu and conforming to others' wants stick with you -"

"Things were _different_ then!" Kana sprang out of her seat to stand as tall as she could manage, which wasn't saying much next to a man who had an entire foot on her.

" _Were_ they so different? You were healing from an unimaginable loss, you were only just beginning to remember that your happiness and youth were only lying dormant, instead of being dead and rotten -"

" _You_ were the one that told me that it's not possible to always do what we want, dad," Kana snapped, "But you said as long as I believe in something, and persevere, that's what matters! You taught me to _make_ shit work!"

The muscles in Guy's jaw and neck flexed, "I also taught you that giving up on your future and dreams is what leads to one's ultimate suffering," he reminded her sternly.

A pressure built behind Kana's eyes, and she had to fiercely bite her lip to keep her composure from slipping.

"I didn't _give up_ on the future I wanted," she ground out, "He _died_."

Guy looked as if he had just been punched in the gut, and he fell silent, like the words had been physically knocked out of him.

"You told Lee and I that the lotus of Konoha blooms twice. That everyone has a second chance to forge their own destiny," Kana continued without waiting for a response, "I'm sorry that I'm not perfect, like Lee, but this is my second chance at being the person I want to be. I have to be the person that people _need_ me to be..."

She had to assume the responsibilities that she had been dealt with, so others could be who they wanted to be.

"I would have done _anything_ to live the life I imagined I could have had," Kana whispered, a lump forming in her throat, "But I can't have it, so _this_ is what I choose."

Guy's voice was thick and heavy, as if it were lined in lead, "If Kisame were alive…"

The lump grew large enough for her to feel like she would choke to death on it. Kana nodded slowly and watched her father's face twist as the weight of Kisame's death finally, truly, sunk in.

"Yeah."

It would mean breaking the promise she made to Raido in the breezeway of his apartment, but it would have been the first thing she had ever done for _herself_ , and her _own_ happiness.

Guy's eyes filled, though no tears fell.

A knock at the door snapped them out of their shared headspace. Neither of them relaxed, they continued to stare stiffly at one another, but the knock was a welcomed excuse for this conversation to be considered over.

"Mistress Kana," her old caretaker, Rei, called through the door, "A visitor has arrived to the manor for you."

Kana pulled her mask back over her face before smoothing her flak jacket out, eyes still trained on the spandex-clad jonin.

"Don't let this undermine what I have with Raido, dad," she murmured, "Just because it's not..." Kana sighed, "I _do_ love him. I need him in my life - Yuki, too. She needs someone that's warm and grounded and... Not like me. That's why I requested a chit from my commander."

For the first time in her life, she actually found herself thanking her therapist for his advice; Kana made the mental note to bring that up in her next session with Inoichi.

Guy hesitated only a moment before leaving the room to make way for a familiar grey-haired bounty hunter with white, glowing eyes which were hidden by tinted goggles. The door shut behind him with a soft click, and neither of them said anything until long after the two sets of footsteps faded into silence.

Kyosuke was the one to speak first.

"Your brother..."

"Is resting at home," Kana sat back down in her chair and rolled up the scroll to protect its contents, "You are alone?"

He shrugged, "Sorta. Kyrie is at the compound."

One left to scout the location while the other gathers intel from a direct source. Smart.

"You said that we can live here?" Kyosuke shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking more than just uncomfortable as he spoke, "What do you want from us?"

Kana shook her head and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest, "I don't want anything from you."

His eyebrows drew in suspiciously, "Everyone wants something," he responded coolly.

"I want my family home."

Behind his goggles, Kyosuke's eyes flashed. His lips flattened into a tight white line as his shoulders stiffened. In his discomfort Kana could see that he didn't trust her - for good reason, she suspected - but there was still a part of him that wanted to believe what she was saying, that he and his sister could finally entrust someone other than themselves.

In a sense, it wasn't too different from how Kana treated people.

Later, she would laugh about how brooding and distrust ran in the family.

Gesturing at the chair in front of her desk, she sighed and toyed with the end of her braid.

"Take a seat, Kyosuke. I am going to tell you a very long story."

* * *

 _Six days later..._

"Is this something I should get used to?"

Kana, and the seven other individuals in Raido's living room, looked up from the coffee table that was covered in sheets of paper that were stapled together in groups of three, "Welcome home."

The tokujo smiled warmly as he nodded silent hellos to the visitors, "A paperwork party?" he joked.

Lifting one of the packets, Kana wiggled the pen that was held between her teeth, "Applications for Chubu."

"Several of those in the standard Anbu force have begun requesting a transfer to Kana's division upon being informed that she was in charge," Neji explained from where he was stretched out on the couch, injured leg propped up on pillows that had been retrieved from Raido's bed.

"Most of which appear to be from the company that she commanded before her transfer to Root," Sai added disinterestedly, more interested in the letter of recommendation of a chunin-ranked Anbu member.

Neji frowned, "Conscription much more suitable terminology for Danzo's –"

"Doesn't matter," Kana hummed before he could pique too many of the others' curiosity, dropping the packet into the rejection pile, "Raido, these are the shinobi I have selected as my captains."

Part of the perk of becoming the head of Root was being able to hand-pick every one of the captains that would lead one hundred man companies in the division, instead of having to deal with grandfathered leaders.

Having already met Imai, Saeko and Haru in the past, Raido shared an awkwardly professional greeting with Tatsuma and Torune. To the best of Kana's knowledge, they had only seen each other in passing when Raido still resented Root and its members.

"So, to answer my question, yes," he joked. Raido navigated around the sofa to drop down to the floor to sit next to Kana, "Do you need help?"

Haru slid the final stack of applications so that they were sitting in front of the tokujo, then handed him a pen, "Here ya go, loverboy."

The very corner of Torune's lips twitched upwards into a subtle grin. "We are sorting out those who seem have a wish to avoid the front lines, and those who are deemed too important to remove from a general's command."

Raido looked lost, "Uh…"

"Alright, I'll handle the rest of these, you just get started on dinner," Kana kissed his shoulder, too lazy to put forth the effort of stretching to reach his cheek.

Raido looked over his shoulder towards the kitchen, then back, " _Uhhhh_ …."

"Alright, we'll go out," she shooed him away, "I've been wanting barbecue, anyways."

Two hours and a number of phone calls later, half of the tables at Yakiniku Q2 were pushed together for a party that took up the majority of the restaurant's free floor space. Friendly conversation filled the air in a way that made the atmosphere light and cheerful, a feeling that they were all long overdue for.

Anbu, both standard and Chubu, mingled with chunin and jonin of varying ranks. Lee prattled off about training to Imai and Haru, who looked thoroughly entertained by the teenager's enthusiasm for his workout regimen. Kakashi had an arm looped around Genma's shoulders – a wordless gesture that shocked all of them in a strangely pleasant way – as he told a story to Izumo and Tenten about a mission that went wrong in the most comical way possible that led to him having to pretend to sleep with Guy to avoid being betrothed to the current Mizukage. While his pink-haired student, Kana was pretty sure her name was Sakura, bickered about something with her blonde-haired friend and Naruto, Torune and Tatsuma were catching up with Shino, and Kurenai was showing Chozo Akimichi's kid how to hold her infant daughter.

Every half hour or so there seemed to be another small group of people that would arrive, and they would push up another chair and order a new round of drinks. It wasn't long before the entire group, save a few, was happily tipsy as they leisurely ate dinner, sometimes taking bites off of each others' plates, and shared an amicable mood.

The only thing that could possibly made this evening better was if –

A familiar chakra signature entered Yakiniku Q2, and Kana twisted around in her seat fast enough to almost give herself whiplash.

A pretty waitress greeted Yuki when she slid open the paper door behind her, but she waved her hand in dismissal when offered a table, pointing to the large cluster of tables that was the direct source for the majority of the room's noise. She darted out of the entry way, arms out.

"Mama!"

Genma chuckled as he brought a beer to his lips, "Would ya look at that, the kid talks."

"Man, look at that hair!" Naruto exclaimed with a mouth full of – holy _shit_ the kid was actually eating something other than ramen, "What, did you just walk in on Sai when he was-"

Ino's head whipped around to glare at him, "Naruto, I _swear_ if you finish that sentence I will hit you so hard that Billboard's monster strength won't even _begin_ to compare!"

Chopsticks twitched in Sakura's hands at the remark and a vein bulged in her forehead, "The hell did you just say, Pig?!"

The girls began lobbing insults at each other before grinning and giggling sheepishly, eliciting a less than gentlemanly remark from Shikamaru as he brought a small cup of sake to his lips.

Of course, Kana ignored all of them. She scooped the child up in her arms, pulling her into her lap, and pressed a kiss to her cheek, "You're back early."

Yuki nodded and looped her arms around her neck as her legs swung back and forth, "Ko-sensei said we did good."

"Of course you did!" Guy beamed proudly, "One should expect nothing less from someone so full of youth that was trained by such a powerful –"

"Guy, I'm not drunk enough for you just yet," Kakashi teased.

After retrieving a pair of metal chopsticks from the cup in the center of their table, Raido plucked a few bites of food from Genma's and Kotetsu's plates to create a sort of potluck plate for Yuki, "Here, you're probably hungry."

The genin nodded happily.

"So, what happened?" Genma asked around a mouthful of pickled radish and grilled beef, "You get in a fight?"

Unable to retell everything with her current speech skills, Yuki activated her Ishikigan and locked eyes with Genma to relay the story.

"Hey, hey! Don't go holding out on us by using your weird mind reading tricks!" Naruto exclaimed when he recognized the same pattern he saw in the forest, eliciting a rather violent punch from Sakura as she shushed him.

"Use your words," Kana agreed, rubbing her arm gently, "You can do it."

Yuki looked doubtful, but relented. The next few minutes were spent with her explaining what details of her mission she could, having to stop and carefully think out her words and force herself to enunciate properly every now and then. Apparently there was a rather intense battle that went far above the mission's rank, but she fought well enough to take out their attackers while her teammates ducked for cover with their injured sensei. Kakashi noted how that wasn't too different from the first mission he took Team 7 on, where they learned too late that the bridge builder they were escorting was actually being hunted down by rogue shinobi.

Pride swelled in Kana's chest with each passing moment. It quickly overtook the subdued anxiety that she felt towards Yuki being on a mission without her, something that she didn't even realize she was feeling until the knot in the pit of her stomach loosened.

She glanced up at Guy, who was watching the scene with a quiet fondness. Feeling her gaze on him, he looked up and offered a slow, tender smile. The rough calluses on his palm scratched a little on her own scarred and beaten knuckles when he slid his hand over the corner of the table to hold hers. The gentle squeeze he gave wasn't unlike the hugs Guy would provide when she was little, and she squeezed back.

Lee looked positively enthralled with Yuki's story, "I cannot imagine how frightening it must have been to fend off an entire team of rogue hunter-nin!"

Sai nodded in agreement, "It most certainly sounds like an intense scenario to find oneself in, especially for your fist mission."

Silver-white hair swished back and forth when Yuki shook her head, "I was trained well. I don't need to be scared."

Damn it all if Kana didn't almost break down into tears on the spot at that.

Sniffing a bit, she looked up at Raido, who was listening to Yuki explain a jutsu she had used with an amused look on his face. One of his hands was wrapped around hers, almost enveloping it completely; Raido's thumb stroked the soft underside of her wrist idly, as gentle as the way he watched Yuki smile and bounce as her story reached the part where she and her teammate had to infiltrate the enemy camp for medical supplies.

It wasn't too unlike the way Kana would sit at the dinner table and share hers and Shisui's stories when she was still a child, feeling the warm weight of her father's hand holding hers when she lamented over Itachi not being on their team after they passed the Chunin Exams.

Something so overwhelming that Kana was nearly knocked flat on her back by it washed over her, and she had to quietly excuse herself to step outside. It was only when the door shut behind her that she allowed the first few tears to spill over, trailing down her pale cheeks at an unhurried pace before dripping into the collar of her shirt.

She loved her. Kana loved her so much – so much so that she couldn't possibly understand how she had any room left for anyone else.

But she did. She loved Neji and Sai, and she loved Lee, and Tenten, and Kana loved them so much and was so proud of everything they had accomplished as they grew up. She was so happy to be home and here and with them, with her family.

Her _family_.

The door to the restaurant slid open, and Kana turned around in time to watch Raido slip through. His eyes were warm and understanding as he closed the short distance between them with a few strides of his long legs, reaching out to wrap his arms around her narrow shoulders.

"I know," he murmured into her hair, "You don't have to explain."

It wasn't what she initially wanted, no. A pretty picket-fence life with a child and a husband wasn't the life that Kana envisioned for herself.

But, as she slipped her own arms around Raido's waist and buried her face into his chest, inhaling that familiar scent of wood and musk, she realized that it didn't mean she wanted this any less. It didn't mean Kana wanted to leave, or that she didn't look forward to the road that had been set in front of her feet.

Being home meant that Kana could look forward to watching her brothers continue to grow up. She could make up for the time she had lost with Sai. Yuki could grow up with friends, and learn how to be normal. Kana could help bring her other clan members back home to the village and rebuild the inner workings of the Shimis to ensure that nothing like this could ever happen again. She could help train the ones that never learned how to use their abilities.

It meant that she could live a life with a man that loved her so much that he waited years for her to come to him, and waited even longer for her to return.

A small, warm hand slipped over her hip, and the two broke apart to look down at Yuki, who was leaning into Kana's body, her cheek nestled into the side of her bosom, with her arms wrapped around their waists.

Raido grinned and dropped one arm down to wrap it around the child's shoulders. Kana mirrored his movement, pulling her tight.

Like Raido, Neji and Sai didn't ask any questions when they stepped out to check on them. Neji leaned in for a soft kiss on the cheek before circling Kana's waist with his slender arms from behind. With a quiet smile, Sai put one hand on Yuki's back, the other coming up to rest between Neji's shoulder blades, and he touched his forehead to Kana's.

When Guy exited the building, he said nothing. He only patted Raido's shoulder and nodded at Lee and Tenten when they joined the embrace.

Izumo and Kotetsu soon followed, though they stood a few feet away, their arms holding each others' waists, next to Genma and Kakashi.

In that moment, Kana was certain that there was no one else on this planet that felt as loved as she did in that moment, and loved as much as she did.

With her family in her arms and her most precious friends by her side, she knew without a doubt that this was a life worth living. It was one worth pursuing and cherishing. It was worth longing for.

It was everything she had ever wanted.

In that moment, with fond tears staining her cheeks, with her brothers holding her, with her child in her arms, with the man she loved pressing tender kisses to her hair, Kana realized that for the first time in her long, painful, trying life…

She had a family.

She was experiencing true happiness.

And she wouldn't give this up for the world.


End file.
